






















■> *\V * 






o n c * J » * s S , \ X ' vu y ° * X ^ 

vf^VlW" °o o° V A 





o 

*7 

> ^ 0 * 

X ^ 

x° ■ 


O ^ 
o 


G°‘ „<■ 

-< 

»v 

■n? 

0^ 

r °^t 

*r 

O 

*>> 



>- w 1 


❖ ! S s A 


° NC /> <£'**’ g\ x 

^ ,# X* 

■' <y 

^ - Vt/^ v - 

Mv 


tj. fe ^5 A 

O y ^ ^ 


o « x 







flL^ C^V L , ' '] C* ✓ 

5 n. o \V r^. «y o.i * aQ & r ~ 

V ,'*»/ > 91 s * * 41 r. *% 0 N 0 . i * 0 , 

v, a A*’ v ^e4W^ *> v r 

* vv * rf(\ A A * « <?* 

^ * v « ^\\«gAv^ ® , A> v 




<£> 




, ^ : ** v \ 


<* <A 


\ X O o ^ ' ✓ ~SL « ^ ^ 

-A s * * * ^ ^ 3 N 0 v . ** a i \ * k*.^ 

s L<oJ * . CA V ^ Y 4 0 /- > 1 0> S s * * r 

2 y^» . X V *• ^ r ' ^ A * 

>,<v 4 ° ^> <^> 

a C. S- £ 

- A oV ^ 

* <G* 




•A % 


A \ a V 1 B . -/U 

v ^ *\L ^ °o 

^V v^ * jr// ^ * 

^ > 




0 * X 



o 


-* v ,/ 


V ^ 


v * o 


/> AV , *r r 

^ 'V « / 


^ J * * s * 
Sv. ^ vl^ A 

^ ; 

r\ _l 



1> 

%. J o.,^ G" 

*% °o /,^«/^ 

’ : ^o' 'A ^ 







<c> * 

-A ,-* V . /✓ ^ c s\ 



/ ^ v *v VW?/ % : , < 

'••''V ,v.., %*'•“' 0 ^° o*c, 

,-fc 6 V V nO ^' 1 *-> C- ^SNx * + v^ 

J * ftil/ZZ** * ... C - *^S^k ' '^, v^ X 

















SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


By ANNA CHAPIN RAY 


THE TEDDY BOOKS 

I. Teddy : Her Book 

II. Phebe : Her Profession 

III. Teddy : Her Daughter 

IV. Nathalie’s Chum 

V. Ursula’s Freshman 

VI. Nathalie’s Sister 

THE SIDNEY BOOKS 

I. Sidney: Her Summer on the St. Lawrcnco 

II. Janet : Her Winter in Quebec 
HI. Day: Her Year in New York 

IV. Sidney at College 

V. Janet at Odds 

VI. Sidney : Her Senior Year 

NOVELS 

The Dominant Strain 
By the Good Sainte Anne 
On the Firing Line 
Hearts and Creeds 
Ackroyd of the Faculty 
Quickened 
The Bridge Builders 
Over the Quicksands 








it* ■ ' 


w A long,, long line of loyal, enthusiastic girls.” Frontispiece. 

See P. 314 


'Boobsi 


SIDNEY: 

HER SENIOR YEAR 

BY 

ANNA CHAPIN RAY 

\\ 

AUTHOR OF “ SIDNEY AT COLLEGE,” “ JANET AT ODDS,” 

“teddy: her book,” etc. 


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM DRAWINGS BY 
HARRIET ROOSEVELT RICHARDS 



BOSTON 

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
1910 



Copyright, 1910 , 

By Little, Brown, and Company. 

All rights reserved 


Published, October, 1910 


printers 

S. J. Paukhill & Co., Boston, C. S. A. 


©CI.A273459 


TO THE PRESIDENT OF 
SMITH COLLEGE 


MARION LEROY BURTON 






LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


“ A long, long line of loyal, enthusiastic girls ” 

Frontispiece is 

“ Nowhere else in all the world does the com- 

iug autumn array itself in finer colors ” Page 42 
“ Sidney looked up from beneath her own 

streaming umbrella “ 114 

“ He lifted one lean forefinger and shook it 

at her jauntily ” “ 247 

















































































* ► 




, 






















































SIDNEY: 

HER SENIOR YEAR 


CHAPTER ONE 

“ 1%/TY de-ar girls ! ” The speaker flung herself into 
T-fA a chair and fanned herself with her hat, for she 
had been down town, and the September sun was warm. 
“ Have you seen the dromedary? ” 

“ The dromedary? ” An answering voice detached 
itself from the chorus of babble which was focussing 
itself upon the proper hanging of the pictures. 

“ Yes, the dromedary. Nothing else expresses her.” 
“ What is she? A freshman? ” 

The first speaker nodded with slow emphasis. 

“ She’s Sidney Stayre’s sister,” she replied allitera- 
tively. “ Have any of you seen her? ” 

Amy Pope, mounted on a tall step-ladder, gave a 
chuckle whose quality was but barely tempered by her 
loyalty to the absent Sidney. 

“ Seen her? ” she echoed then. “ Of course I have, 
often.” 

“ But you never told us.” 

“ What was there to tell? ” Amy queried demurely, 
as once more she faced back to the wall. 

There was a little gasp of dissenting wonder that 


2 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


any one, seeing Phyllis Stayre, could have the effrontery 
to ask the question. Then, — 

“ Everything! ” came the comprehensive answer. 
“ Everything, her height included. She’d dwarf the 
— the Flatiron Building, if she stopped beside it, and, 
even then, her feet and her hands and her nose have 
developed out of all proportion to the rest of her. 
Really, Amy, she is — ” 

“ Preposterously ugly,” Amy assented calmly. 
“ There, girls, is that right? But about poor Phyllis: 
she’s not to blame for her looks.” 

“ Maybe not,” the other girl said viciously; “ but 
she is to blame for her clothes.” 

Amy turned around once more, and, coming down a 
step or two, seated herself to argue at her ease. 

“ Maybe, maybe,” she assented. “ What did she 
have on, this time? ” 

“ You speak as if she were a chronic problem, Amy,” 
another of the group interposed. 

Amy waved aside the interruption. 

" You haven’t seen Phyllis yet,” she said conclu- 
sively. 

The first speaker took up the theme. 

“ Have on? Assorted fragments of all her different 
costumes, I should judge. Her blouse, from the look 
of it, was French convent work, the sort of thing we 
generally save for dinner-time. She wore it with a 
skirt that looked like withered denim, and she also had 
on hob-nailed shoes. Then she wears spectacles which 
appear to pinch her massive brow, for she has wound 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


3 


the legs of them with some sort of black yarn, by way 
of pad, and her waist measure is — ” 

“ Well? ” Amy urged her to her finishing touch. 

The touch, when it came, proved to be anticlimax. 

“ Just a little capacious,” the other girl said mildly, 
while she stuck the pins back into her hat, preparatory 
to rising and going on her way. “ Apparently Miss 
Phyllis, if that’s her name — she looks like a Maria — 
has theories of her own regarding costume.” 

“ And apparently they don’t agree with yours,” 
Amy called after her retreating back. And then, with 
a little sigh, she added to herself, “ Poor old Sidney! 
It’s too bad.” 

But another of the group had overheard the final 
comment, and cut in with an expression of her own 
belief. 

“ It wouldn’t make any difference with Sidney’s 
stand, if she had a whole Noah’s ark full of sisters 
dressed in assorted party frocks and rubber boots. 
She’s Sidney Stayre, and that’s all that counts 
here. Do you suppose we’ll get her in for presi- 
dent? ” 

Amy drove a tack with a vehemence which sent her 
left thumb into her mouth. 

“ If — we — can — put — her — in,” she asserted, 
between caressing sucks. “ The Tyler and Haven 
girls are for her, solid, and all the invitation houses. 
Still, the Dickinson girls — ” . 

“ Their candidate is only Phi Kap,” some one in- 
terrupted. “ Sidney is Alpha.” 


4 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


“ Yes, and Biological, and Colloquium, and German: 
three clubs and a society. But the other girl is — ” 

“Bother the other girl!” Amy responded, with a 
vindictiveness in part due to her afflicted thumb, 
and with a phraseology which would have startled 
her lady mother, fortunately at home and out of hear- 
ing. “ The best of the class is for Sidney, and we can 
count on the help of all the snobs who want to follow 
the winning side. That ought to give us a fairly 
solid majority. If it doesn’t, we’ll have to make 
the best of it, and put Sidney in as chairman of dra- 
matics.” 

“ Do you think she’d make a good one? ” 

Amy shook her head. 

“Not so good as she would president,” she made 
elliptical reply. “ Still, she just has to be put in as 
something, even if we have to manufacture an office 
for her. All the course, she’s been one of the most 
prominent girls in the class, and she hasn’t had a decent 
office yet.” 

“ Just because we’ve been saving her for senior presi- 
dent,” came bluntly from across the room. 

“ Exactly.” Amy nodded at her thumb, which she 
was examining with anxious care. “ It’s only that, 
now and then, one’s savings get swept away from them, 
and then — ” 

“ Then? ” the other girl queried. 

Amy rose to her feet. 

“ Then there generally follows a most awful panic,” 
she made succinct reply. “ However, I have no in- 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


5 


tention yet awhile of getting panicky concerning Sid- 
ney.” 

“ Too bad she’s had such a sister land here,” some- 
body else murmured sympathetically. 

Again Amy shook her head. Again her reply was 
succinct. 

“No monkey ever hurt the chances of any hand- 
organ; it’s the quality of the instrument itself. Sidney 
is all right.” 

“Yes; only it’s too bad, just now — ” The speaker 
trailed off into indecisive pauses. 

“ It’s too badder that she and Day wouldn’t come 
over here with us,” came another voice. “ What do 
you suppose was the real reason, Amy? ” 

“ Solid conscience, especially on Day’s part,” Amy 
told her. 

“ But they always said they’d go in for invitation 
houses. Don’t you remember that night in freshman 
year? ” 

“ That was theory, and a long way ahead. When it 
came to the point, Day balked, and Sidney couldn’t 
be coaxed or bullied into leaving her, so they both 
stayed on the campus. Of course, there’s something 
to be said on their side. It’s a little hard on the college 
to have all the best seniors going off the campus, and 
it throws too much responsibility on the best of the 
juniors. Still, I wish that Day had been a little less 
endowed with conscience. I had counted on her being 
over here with all the rest of us.” 

“ Perhaps she didn’t want to come.” 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


Amy frowned. The suggestion, a little too pertly 
accented for her liking, had come from the girl who had 
been chosen to fill Day’s vacant place. 

“ As it happens, I know for a fact that she did,” 
she answered quietly. “ With Day Argyle, though, 
the what she wants isn’t always the final consideration.” 

The girl who had spoken from across the room shook 
her head gloomily at the sofa pillow she was covering. 

“ There’s one thing about it,” she observed; “ it’s 
bound to make a good deal more difference to us than 
it will to Day and Sidney.” 

Day and Sidney, meanwhile, were anything but 
gloomy, while they settled their belongings in one of 
the largest, sunniest rooms of the Tyler House. True, 
as Amy had said, only a stern and conscientious sense 
of duty to the college as a whole had kept them from 
going to join a dozen of their closest friends and cronies 
in the invitation house a few doors down the street, 
a sense of duty argued out by Day in various discus- 
sions with her brother, who brought to bear upon the 
question all the logic that had come with Harvard 
seniorhood. Day Argyle’s conscience, coupled with 
Rob Argyle’s logic, had brought the matter to a swift 
reversal of Day’s earlier plan. As gently as she was 
able, midway in her junior year, Day had broken the 
news of her decision to her roommate, Sidney Stay re; 
had mentioned to Sidney that, she herself staying on 
the campus, Sidney would better plan to room with 
Amy Pope. 

To Day’s intense surprise, Sidney mutinied promptly 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


7 


and flatly. It was a fact that she had liked the invita- 
tion house idea, had looked forward to the good times 
their little set would have, quite by themselves and 
with the matron of their choice. Nevertheless, without 
discussion of any sort, Sidney had refused to room 
with any one but Day Argyle; and, her refusal once 
phrased, she departed on her heels to acquaint the 
Registrar with their combined decision. In conse- 
quence, there was wailing among their especial friends; 
but the wiser heads among the faculty rejoiced, for Day 
Argyle and Sidney Stayre, steady and sane and glori- 
ously human, were good to hold on the campus. As for 
Sidney and Day, their stand once taken and publicly 
announced, they ceased to waste much thought upon 
the matter. 

It was now a long four years since the September 
afternoon when Sidney Stayre and Day Argyle had 
met, and, meeting, had sworn a friendship which bade 
fair to be perennial. Their New York homes were 
barely half a mile apart, yet their acquaintance had 
achieved itself by devious and round-about ways. Sid- 
ney Stayre, spending a summer in the Cote de Beaupre, 
had become good friends with a Quebec family of 
Leslies. Six months later, when Mr.' Leslie’s death 
had revealed the bareness of the family treasury, Mrs. 
Leslie had sought to make both ends meet by taking 
boarders, and the boarders had been the Argyles. Rob 
Argyle had been semi-invalided, just then, convalescent 
from a football injury to his knee. Accordingly, it 
had come to pass, when his doctor ordered him back to 


8 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


New York for special treatment, that the younger 
Leslies had seen to it that he should meet their good 
friend, Sidney Stayre 0 Rob and Sidney had liked each 
other from the start, regardless of the fact that Rob 
was the pampered son of fortune, Sidney the daughter 
of a home where brains were more plentiful than dollars, 
or even dimes. Day, however, had had her reserva- 
tions, had even held back from a suggested meeting. 
In the end, she had yielded only because she always 
did yield to every whim of her jovial older brother. 
She had packed up all her reservations into a bundle 
and taken them with her, when at last she had gone 
for her first call on Sidney. In the course of the call, 
however, she had lost her bundle, and, in the weeks 
and months to come, she never had been able to find 
it again. In her judgment, Sidney Stayre was of too 
large a nature to be judged by the question of whether 
she did or did not possess certain things that Day, 
up to that time, had regarded as essentials. She was 
herself. Being herself, she needed nothing more. 

Early in their first year at college, Day’s mother had 
tried to play the fairy godmother to Sidney, just a little 
and only now and then. She had been afraid that the 
other girls in the class would be less clear-sighted than 
her own young daughter; that, in a crowd of strangers, 
struggling all for recognition of one sort or another, 
Sidney might be judged less by what she was than by 
what she did not have. Mrs. Argyle’s efforts, however, 
had been wholly needless. Sidney, to be sure, had 
accepted her gifts with a simple gratitude that had been 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


9 


both sensible and generous. None the less, with or 
without the gifts, Sidney’s career would have been just 
the same. Downright as a boy, full of fun, full, too, 
of kindly sympathy for every one about her, capable of 
a loyalty that would endure through thick and thin, 
endure to the very death, Sidney Stayre was as sure to 
make new friends as she was to hold her old ones. 

And Day was loyal and downright, too, albeit quicker 
of temper and of speech, more vehement in all her moods, 
and totally unspoiled by her life of only daughter in a 
luxurious and adoring home. If any one had sought 
to belittle Day in Sidney’s eyes, that one would have 
been slowly crushed to death beneath the withering 
weight of Sidney’s scornful dignity; but any one malign- 
ing Sidney in Day’s hearing would have been swiftly 
scorched by Day’s hot wrath. To each other, they 
were fast becoming all in all; and yet each one did her 
level best to keep room in her life for a round dozen 
of other, lesser friends. Nevertheless, their best times 
of all were when they were quite alone together, or else 
with Day’s only brother, Rob. 

Chief among these other, lesser girl friends was Amy 
Pope, who had just confessed to knowing Phyllis Stayre. 
Another of them was Janet Leslie, and Janet now sat 
enthroned, Turkwise, on the bed, and offered sage 
advice about the placing of the desks and tea-table. 

“ Of course,” she said, with a scanty regard for the 
feelings of her companions; “ if you were grinds, or 
even just plain students, your desks would be the main 
thing to consider. As it is, though, I’d give that place 


10 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


to the table. It’s the greatest good of the greatest num- 
ber that you’re after, and you’ll have ten girls in to 
eat things to every thirster after knowledge.” 

Sidney laughed. 

“ I prefer my knowledge to be diluted with tea; I 
always did,” she confessed. “ It’s no use, Janet; I 
am afraid I don’t take my work enough in earnest.” 

“ You don’t have to,” Janet responded flatly. 
“ Things come to you, without your half trying for 
them; to Day, too. I have to dig for what I get.” 

“ What matter, as long as you get it, dearie? ” Day 
queried, as she cast aside the books she was sorting 
and went to rest with Janet on the bed. 

“Matter!” Janet echoed grimly. “Nothing; only 
that the class labels me a grind, and passes me by on 
the other side.” 

“ There are worse things than a grind,” Day said 
consolingly. 

“ Yes, and better. There’s nothing more deadly, 
though. I’m willing to grind, nine tenths of the time. 
The other tenth, I’d like to kick my heels and frivol 
with the rest of you; but nobody seems to think it 
possible I have any latent tendencies towards skit- 
tishness,” Janet grumbled, scowling at her interlocked 
fingers. 

“ How do you want to skit? ” Sidney demanded 
briefly, above the clatter of the cups she was unpacking. 

“ I don’t know. I wish I did,” Janet confessed, 
still moodily. “ That’s the very worst of the whole 
situation. I have a vague hankering for frivolity in 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


11 


general; but there’s no one thing I care about, besides 
tennis and the banjo club. After all, I sometimes think 
I enjoy my work about as much as anything I’ve ever 
done, except — ” 

“ Except what, Janet? ” Day asked, her eyes upon 
her companion’s intent face. 

Janet looked up, met her eyes, blushed hotly. Then — 

“Do you remember the first day I did Madame 
Champlain? ” she asked crisply. “ That was the very 
best day for me of all the pageants,” she caught her 
breath; “ almost of all my life.” 

Sidney looked up from her pink and green china cups. 

“ Janet,” she asked abruptly; “ why don’t you go 
in for dramatics? ” 

“Me! Hh!” Janet answered. Then she changed 
the subject. 

It was a little while before Sidney spoke again, and 
it was plain that, during her silence, her mind was not 
wholly upon her cups. 

“ Amy says they have read everything from early 
Hindu to the works of Mr. Bacon-Shakespeare,” she 
observed. “ I shall be glad, when it is all settled.” 

“ When will be the meeting? ” 

“ As soon as they stop fighting over presidential 
candidates,” Sidney made answer, with a fine uncon- 
sciousness of the identity of one of those same candi- 
dates. “ They ought to settle that, this next week, 
and take the play, the week after.” 

“ I hope they give Midsummer Night’s Dream Day 
remarked, from her corner of the bed. 


12 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


“ Oh, why? I don’t,” Sidney opposed her. 

“ Because I yearn to see myself as Bottom,” Day 
yawned. “ That seems to me a grand climax for one’s 
college course.” 

“ I always felt a mad desire to be a ghost,” Sidney re- 
torted. “ All you have to do is to stalk about and then 
fade away again. That reminds me, Janet, have you 
been up to see your mother, this morning? ” 

“ Yes, early.” 

“ See anything of my small sister? ” 

Janet laughed. 

“ No. I heard her, though.” 

Sidney’s eyes betrayed a passing uneasiness as to what 
lay back of Janet’s laughter. 

“ What was she doing? ” 

“ I am not sure. I thought it wasn’t wise to go in, 
so, like your ghost, I just stalked about and faded away 
again. She seemed to be engaged in elemental strife 
with her trunk and a chair or two. However, those old 
houses are solidly built,” Janet added reassuringly. 

“ If a chair was all. But what about the roommate? ” 

“ That remains to be seen.” 

“ Hasn’t she come yet? ” 

Janet shook her head. 

“ Not until this afternoon.” 

Sidney gave a little sigh. 

“Oh, dear! ” she said. “ I do wish I knew how she 
and Phyllis were going to get along together.” 


CHAPTER TWO 


T HERE were others who shared Sidney’s wonder, 
not the least curious among whom was Mrs. Leslie, 
Janet’s mother. 

Mrs. Leslie’s Canadian life, together with the past three 
years in Northampton, years which had sufficed to 
build up her household of girls into the most popular 
and potent freshman colony in all Smith College, not 
all of Mrs. Leslie’s past experience had given her any 
standards whereby to judge a girl like Phyllis Stayre. 
If the poker had a hot end, Phyllis promptly grasped 
it. If Phyllis could deny herself any of the gentler 
graces, the denial came with strenuous insistence. If 
there were ever a totally unpopular side to any question, 
with unerring instinct Phyllis chose it as her own, 
alternately hugging its corners to her heart, and brand- 
ishing it aloft in sign of battle. Like royalty itself, 
her lions were always rampant, generally rambustious 
and occasionally rampaging. She spelt honour and 
duty in the largest capitals, and omitted graciousness 
from her vocabulary entirely. Any showing of affection 
she deemed beneath her dignity. She went her way 
in lofty isolation, outwardly disdainful, inwardly crav- 
ing in vain the affection that none dared offer her; 
none, that is, save her father and her grown-up cousin, 


14 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


Wade Winthrop. As for her sister Sidney, Phyllis was 
never able to decide whether her own attitude was of 
affection, envy, or of total disapproval. Sidney had 
all the qualities denied herself, she knew. None the less, 
Phyllis had a smug belief that she herself would never 
have been content to slide along through life with one- 
tenth of her sister’s irresponsibility, and she gave audible 
expression to her regrets that Sidney paid so little heed 
to the effect of her example on the world about her. 

In personal appearance, Phyllis was just as Amy 
Pope’s companion had described her, only a good deal 
more so. Long since, she had outgrown the physical 
dimensions of her parents, and still she was shooting 
upward with a tireless energy. Her long, lanky body 
was loosely strung together, and her arms and legs 
seemed swinging off at odd angles, with a curious tend- 
ency to get themselves in her way at inconvenient 
moments. Her hands were knuckly, and her feet were 
flat. For the rest, her hair was brown and as lank as 
her body; her nose was long, and her spectacled eyes 
were pale blue and prominent. Her sole redeeming 
feature was her sensitive mouth with its hard, even 
teeth, and even that was injured by its customary 
look of disdainful discontent. 

Nature assuredly had been in a malign mood, when 
Phyllis Stayre was created. To make the matter worse, 
she had been endowed with an inborn craving for 
the beautiful, a longing to achieve it in her person and 
surroundings; while she had been denied all knowledge 
that beautiful things about one may not, of necessity, 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


15 


be harmful to one’s moral sense. Phyllis undeniably 
was ugly. Still, she might have made herself more 
comely, had she not taken it as a creed that the beauty 
of intellect, however mediocre, rendered needless any 
other sort of charm. Once only and for a few months, 
she had wavered from her gospel of ugliness. She had 
fluffed out her lanky hair and hunted for becoming 
colours for her frocks. While the epoch lasted, she 
was a changed and gracious Phyllis. Then she had 
cast the effort from her, and returned to her grim and 
unadorned severity. 

Whether she had been antagonized by some careless 
comment ; whether she had simply become disheartened 
by her increasing length and boniness: this remained a 
mystery to all her friends. Phyllis vouchsafed no 
explanation to any one. She merely resumed her old 
habit of dragging her lank hair backward into a tight, 
hard knob, of robing herself in colours whose dura- 
bility in no way atoned for their exceeding ugliness, 
of denying herself the softening bits of finery that all 
girls love to wear. She was always spotless, always 
trim, always and always presented the appearance 
of being tightly girt for some sanctified and grimy 
undertaking. And now Phyllis Stayre, with all her 
mental and physical and unacsthetic angles, was about 
to be plunged into a household of fluffy, frilly, gay 
young girls, gathered from some of the most luxuri- 
ous homes the country can show. Small wonder that 
Sidney, three years her senior, both in college and in 
life, should feel and express some alarm as to the result. 


16 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


It had been by no means a matter of course that 
Phyllis went to Smith College. 

With Sidney, it had been a fact established in the 
mind of Mr. Stayre upon the night when he had been 
allowed to tiptoe across the dim-lit room and peer 
down at the red and squirming person of his oldest 
child. However, Stayres were many in the home, and 
ducats few. The income of an assistant editor could 
not be expected to send them all to college; and Phyllis, 
who of them all would have cared for it the most, 
had not the ingratiating tricks which would have 
coaxed a higher education out of a hesitating parent. 
Sidney, they all agreed, was making splendid use of 
all her chances, was developing into the all-round 
woman on whom the college tradition had set the seal 
of its approval. In the steady discipline of work and 
play, of training by her mates as well as of instruction 
by the faculty, Sidney’s weak points were becoming 
strong, her strong points stronger. 

All this time, Phyllis was sitting, a silent listener 
at the family conferences, trying as best she could 
to down her envy at the praise of Sidney, trying still 
more to hold in check her smug consciousness that, given 
the chance, she would do better a good deal than Sidney 
had ever done, that she would turn her back on spreads 
and dinners down at Boyden’s, on outdoor sports 
and indoor frolics, and cause herself to be talked over 
by the faculty, an ornament to all the classrooms, 
a living sample package of all the things a college really 
stood for. She even lay awake at night to picture 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


17 


herself, always with smoothly parted hair and uncom- 
promising sleeves and skirts, marching forward, amid 
the echoing plaudits of her class, to receive her diploma 
from the hand of a smiling president, whose unoccupied 
hand would rest upon her shoulder in wordless bene- 
diction. Usually, at this point, Phyllis arose and 
sought her handkerchief. Usually, too, the upsetting 
of stray articles encountered in the dark followed by 
way of anticlimax. 

And now Phyllis Stay re, hugging her theories and 
her ambitions, sternly desirous of reforming the flip- 
pant tone of college life, of providing new records for 
student emulation, above all, of being a torch of duty 
in the merry path of her senior sister: Phyllis had 
arrived upon the scene of all her dreams and fancies. 
The matter had been achieved by Wade Winthrop, 
the cousin whom Phyllis adored. Wade was a man of 
thirty, rich, talented and, above all else, human. Years 
earlier, he had been the first one to see in Phyllis the 
germs of something other than the family termagant 
she seemed. Seeing them, he was keen enough to 
realize that a family of critical, teasing young brothers 
and sisters was by no means the best soil to promote 
their growth. Family tradition had it that Phyllis was 
the odd one, and cranky. It was time, then, that Phyllis 
should be removed from the influence of the family 
tradition. Moreover, as Wade was just about to marry 
a product of Smith College, he was quite naturally 
convinced that Smith College was the best place in 
the world for any girl, for even Phyllis. Mr. Stayre, 


18 


SIDNEY : HER SENIOR YEAR 


after a futile demurring at so great a favour, had ended 
by accepting Wade’s generosity, more because he had no 
notion whatsoever what else to do with Phyllis than for 
any other reason. 

Mrs. Argyle had flung herself into the plan, heart 
and soul. It was she who had coaxed Mrs. Leslie into 
taking the crabbed and ungainly girl into her carefully 
chosen household; it was she who had eked out Phyl- 
lis’s slender wardrobe with the pretty, dainty trifles 
which Phyllis disdained as frivolous and wore at all 
sorts of mismatched hours and angles. It was she 
who had laid upon her own young daughter the final 
charge that she should see to it that Phyllis did not 
have too bad a time, a charge which Day accepted with 
an outward meekness and an inward surety of her own 
futility. 

Phyllis’s inevitable mutiny against the established 
order of things began the night before she left home. 

“ What in the world is the sense in going so early? ” 
she demanded of Sidney. “ College doesn’t open till 
Thursday.” 

Sidney looked up from her trunk. 

“ Because — Why, the girls all do,” she answered. 

Phyllis sat down on the corner of her own trunk 
and prepared to argue out the matter. 

“ What a habit you have of that, Sidney! ” she began, 
in a tone of elderly patience. 

Sidney continued to stuff tissue paper into the sleeves 
of her best winter frock. 

“ Habit of what? ” she queried absently. 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


19 


“ Habit of taking what other people do, as your own 
standard, without seeking to find out why they do it,” 
Phyllis argued, still patiently. 

Sidney laughed. 

“ Why not? The mere fact that they do it shows 
that it is probably the simplest thing to do.” 

After an old, old trick of hers, Phyllis smoothed back 
her hair with the flat of her two hands. The gesture 
did not in the least improve her comeliness; but it gave 
her the comforting sense of being in order for the 
fray. 

“Not at all,” she said then. “ Customs are like — 
like sheep tracks across a country pasture.” 

“ Bravissimo, Phil! Encore! Encore a whole lot 
of times!” And a clapping of hands capped the 
words. 

Phyllis turned her head, to see a great blond boy, 
jovial, tall, wide-shouldered and limping slightly, come 
strolling into the downstairs room which, in deference 
to a winding stairway and the tempers of the porters, 
Phyllis had ordained for the packing of the go-to-college 
trunks. 

“Oh, it’s you!” she said, and her tone was not 
exuberant in its cordiality. 

Sidney, however, hailed the guest with manifest de- 
light. 

“Just in time to sit on my trunk, Rob!” she told 
him. “ I was wondering how I could get the cover 
down.” 

“ I weigh one hundred and ninety-one and a sixth, 


20 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


and I am all at your service. But, I say, do you gen- 
erally do your packing in the front parlour? ” he in- 
quired, as he seated himself in the nearest unencum- 
bered chair. “ With Day, it’s a secret rite. Neither 
Jack nor I are admitted to a view of what goes on, 
when she’s packing.” 

“ How is Day? ” 

“ How should I know? She shut herself in, this 
noon, and she hasn’t been seen since. That’s why 
I am here, you see.” 

“ Thank you,” Sidney told him courteously. 

“ Don’t mention it. But do keep still, and give 
Phil a chance to go at it again. Go it, Phil. The 
sheep trail was a beauty. What next? Hens; or a 
lighthouse on a lonesome rock? ” 

“ Neither.” Phyllis, her head in her trunk, spoke 
briefly. 

Rob Argyle stretched out his long person quite at 
his ease, and clasped his hands behind his yellow head. 
His whole attitude betokened, not only his intention 
of remaining, but his good right to be there in the first 
place. 

“ What called forth the glorious outburst? ” he 
demanded then. 

Sidney laughed. 

“ Phyllis was trying to arouse me to break down the 
custom of going back to Smith, a day early,” she ex- 
plained. 

“ What’s the use? ” Rob queried. 

Phyllis took her head out of the trunk and spoke. 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


21 


“ That is just what I was telling Sidney / 7 she pro- 
claimed. 

Rob waved his hand, as if to dismiss her words. 

“ No,” he corrected. “ I mean what’s the use of 
not use-ing. Why not go? ” 

“ Why waste the time? ” Phyllis demanded in her turn, 
and her accent was that of conscious superiority. 

“ It isn’t wasted,” Sidney defended herself. “ It 
takes a little time to get one’s room in order.” 

“ How much time does it need, I’d like to know, to 
take things out of a trunk and hang them in the closet? ” 
Phyllis quite forgot Rob, as she hurled the question 
at her sister. 

It was Rob, however, who gave the answer. 

“ Lots. You have to rest between layers, you know. 
And then there are the pictures, and the cushions for 
the window-seat,” he argued tranquilly. 

“ Don’t expect to have any,” Phyllis responded briefly. 

“ Oh, but you’ll need them. Else, what will you have 
to lie on and look up at? ” 

Phyllis shut down the cover of her trunk with a 
bang. 

“ I expect to lie in bed at night. The rest of the time, 
I shall sit up, not sprawl; and my books will give me 
all I need to look at,” she announced, with what she 
meant to be a crushing emphasis. 

“ The land ! You don’t say so ! ” Rob’s eyes belied his 
accent. Then he asked meekly, “ Shall I sit on a corner 
of it, Phil? ” 

“ Thanks, no. I usually do things for myself,” she 


22 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


answered, with the light of battle in her eyes, and Rob 
thought best to change the subject. 

However, being Rob Argyle, he could not well keep 
from teasing, and now he recurred to his former query. 

“ I say, Sidney, how long since packing has become 
a drawing-room accomplishment? ” he asked her. 

To his exceeding discomfiture, it was Phyllis who 
answered, and her answer assured him that he was still 
in disgrace. 

“ I always mean to see to it that the trunks are 
brought downstairs to be packed,” she made truculent 
rejoinder. “It is kinder to the men who come for 
them; and, besides, we,” the emphasis on the pronoun 
was invidious; “ we can’t afford to have our front-stairs 
paper all knocked off the walls. The last time Sidney’s 
trunk came home, it took me all the next morning to 
patch the places where the comers had gouged in. 
However, Sidney’s trunk is very heavy. I don’t care 
to cram mine full of senseless gewgaws.” 

Rob whistled. Then, — 

“You may change your tune, when you face the 
proposition of college furniture and four empty walls,” 
he suggested good-naturedly. 

“ I consider empty spaces restful; and I shall have too 
much else to do, anyway, to spend my time dusting 
useless ornaments.” 

“ Mayhap. Your roommate may be otherwise 
minded, however,” he warned her. 

“My roommate is welcome to do as she likes, on 
her own side of the room.” Phyllis rose as curtly as 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


23 


she spoke. “ Good night. I am tired, and I think 
I’ll go to bed. Be sure you put out the light in the hall, 
when Rob goes, Sidney.” 

“ Also the cat,” Rob made incorrigibly flippant ad- 
dition. Then, as he sat gazing after Phyllis’s retreating 
back, his jolly blue eyes clouded. “ Do you know, 
Sidney,” he said at length; “ I find it in my heart of 
hearts to wish that Wade had chosen some other place 
for Phyllis, or else had waited over till another year. 
You aren’t likely to spend this next year on a bed of 
roses, methinks; and, when it’s a case of Phil, me 
generally thinks a good deal to the purpose.” 

“ Yes.” Sidney’s voice was thoughtful, as she rose and 
led the way to the shabby, comfortable library where 
Rob loved best to spend his leisure evenings. “ And 
yet, Rob, I’m not sure you are always fair to Phil.” 

“ Is she to me? ” Rob made unexpected question, 
as he followed at her side. 

On the threshold of the book-crammed, homelike 
room, Sidney halted and looked her companion straight 
in the eyes. 

“ No,” she answered frankly; “ she isn’t. She’s 
not fair to you in the least. There’s this difference 
between you, though. You don’t care a snap, a single 
snap; and Phyllis does. Under all her crankiness, 
she wants to have people care for her, and it almost 
breaks her heart that more of them don’t.” 

“ Why doesn’t she go about making them, then? ” 
Rob asked cheerily, his eyes on the tall girl beside him. 

Sidney shook her head. 


24 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


“ I begin to be afraid it isn’t in her,” she said, with a 
little accent of despair. 

“ Honestly, Sidney, does she ever try? ” 

Sidney hesitated. Then loyalty to her sister tri- 
umphed over absolute truth. 

“ I think she does.” 

“ Mighty curious ways she has of showing it, then! ” 
Rob observed, as, crossing the floor, he drew up a chair 
for Sidney and then flung himself down into an aged 
Morris chair whose stuffing oozed at every seam. “ I 
used to think she did, once on a time. Four years ago, 
the time that Jack was burned, she had an interval of 
comparative meekness. Now — And as for college, 
Sidney, I honestly am afraid you’re up against it.” 

“ Not so much as you’d think. Phil will go her own 
way; all the more so because she has always proclaimed 
it as her theory that Day and I are unduly frivolous. 
Besides, we are in another house and at the farthest 
end of the campus. Phil never has had the habit of 
dropping in upon her friends.” 

“ Be thanked! ” Rob observed piously. “ But what 
about the roommate? ” 

Sidney’s loyalty vanished in her chuckle of pure 
fun. 

“ Rob,” she said, bending forward and speaking low; 
“ we haven’t dared tell Phyllis yet; but, at the last 
minute, the quiet, earnest, purposeful roommate that 
Mrs. Leslie had chosen for her, has decided to go to 
Radcliffe. Of course, the only thing to do, was to 
fill in from the waiting list, and the next in line is a 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


25 


Chicago girl, rich as Croesus, related to all sorts of 
famous people, a mere youngster who is only sent to 
.college for a year or so, to keep her out of society a 
little longer. Won’t they make a glorious combina- 
tion? ” 

Rob whistled softly to himself. Then he echoed 
Sidney’s chuckle. Then, — 

“ Me also thinks the roommate will be up against it,” 
he murmured to himself. 

Forty-eight hours later, the roommate shared Rob 
Argyle’s belief. In the warm middle of a sultry after- 
noon, an afternoon when the heat waves danced across 
the meadows and chased each other up Mount Tom’s 
rugged face, she had shaken herself free from the dust 
and wrinkles of her tiresome journey, and given a 
little sigh of satisfaction when she found herself be- 
neath, not the curved roof of a stuffy sleeper, but of a 
double rank of arching elms. The satisfaction in- 
creased, as her carriage drew up before a fine old colonial 
mansion, and she saw Mrs. Leslie, dainty and smiling, 
waiting to greet her on the threshold. In that instant, 
college ceased to be a bugaboo and became a gracious 
social fact. With Western cordiality, she saw no need 
to hide her pleasure beneath a mask of chill indiffer- 
ence. Instead, she flung an arm around Mrs. Leslie’s 
slim waist and kissed her cheek with frank effusion. 
Then, still clinging to Mrs. Leslie’s hand, she mounted 
the old white staircase, ready to bestow the same 
degree of cordiality upon her waiting roommate. 

However — 


26 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


At a door near the top of the staircase, Mrs. Leslie 
halted. 

“ Come! ” a voice said, with a brevity which sounded 
hostile to the ears outside. 

Mrs. Leslie stepped aside. The door flew open with 
a jerk. Then both Mrs. Leslie and her companion 
gasped, the one at sight of Phyllis, the other at the 
transformation in the erstwhile pretty room. 

Phyllis was in her normally abnormal array; but 
face and hands and hair bore witness to a season of 
strenuous manual toil, so it was no wonder that her 
roommate elect gasped at the sight of what appeared 
before her. Mrs. Leslie’s gasp was quite as accountable. 
From end to end of the great, airy room, an imaginary 
line seemed to have been traced. Ranged on either 
side of the line, planted with logical reference to door 
and window, but without the slightest evidence of 
taste or comfort or anything else but mathematical 
precision: ranged on either side of the room were a 
bed, a desk, a chair, a chiffonier and a screen. Exactly 
in the middle of the floor, astride of the imaginary line, 
stood the one table that the room afforded, the one 
Morris chair. Both sides were equally bare of the 
dainty fripperies in which college girls delight; and 
the only clue to the edge which Phyllis had chosen to 
inhabit lay in the prim row of books above the nearer 
desk. 

The other girl stood, for a moment of blank silence, 
gazing from Phyllis’s self to Phyllis’s waiting room, 
then back to Phyllis and thence down across her fluffy 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


27 


little self. The next instant, to the intense discomfiture 
of Phyllis, she had burst into a fit of delighted laughter 
while, her hand extended, she bore down on Phyllis. 

“ Oh, how do you do? ” she gasped, through her 
merriment. “ I’m Marguerite Veronica Terry, and I 
suppose you are my roommate. Aren’t you the funni- 
est thing that ever lived ! ” Then she stood aside, to 
let the man bring in her trunk. “ You’d better put 
it down in front of that desk, the one with the books on 
top of it,” she ordered nonchalantly. “ We’ll have to 
pack them in as well as we can, you see, for there are 
three more outside.” And, taking off her long gray 
gloves, she tossed them, one inside out, on top of the 
afore-mentioned books. 

Two hours later, when Phyllis and Marguerite Veron- 
ica came down, not side by side, to supper, an eye far 
less keen than that of Mrs. Leslie might have discovered 
that both the girls appeared considerably chastened. 


CHAPTER THREE 


A UDIBLY and aloud, Day Argyle was making her 
unregenerate moan to Janet Leslie. 

“ IPs a fearful thing, Janet, to have the double 
handicap of Scotch Covenanter ancestors and a New 
England conscience,” she lamented. 

Janet, in her freshman year, had formed the un- 
breakable habit of spending a good half of her time in the 
room of Day and Sidney. Now she looked up from 
the essay she was copying at Day’s desk. 

“ How does it take you? ” she inquired unfeelingly. 
“ It grips my higher nature with the tongs of Duty,” 
Day responded. 

“ That sounds rather like a freshman’s effort to get 
notice in English Thirteen,” Janet made caustic com- 
ment. “ Do be concrete, Day, and tell me what ails 
you; or else keep still entirely.” 

“ Phyllis ails me.” 

Janet tranquilly laid aside a finished page and took 
a fresh one. 

“ That’s nothing,” she answered. “ She ails us all.” 
“ Perhaps. Still, your mother hasn’t laid her off on 
you, as your own especial charge.” 

Janet laughed. 

“No; I only imagine she’d like to, now and then. 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


29 


The combined problem of Marguerite Veronica and 
Phyllis is no small one. Have you heard the latest: 
that Marguerite Veronica insists on kissing Phil good 
night and good morning, every single day? ” 

“ She must be plucky. Pd as soon embrace a hedge- 
hog. Imagine Phil allowing herself to be kissed! Who 
told you? Your mother? ” 

“ No. Mother never tells me things about the girls. 
Marguerite Veronica was confiding her trials to a sym- 
pathetic friend, and the friend leaked. I can’t say 
I blame her. The idea of Phyllis under such conditions 
is too good to be lost.” 

“ Poor Sidney!” Day said inconsequently. And 
then she added, “ And poor me! ” 

“ Why poor you? ” 

“ Because it’s borne in on me that I ought to take 
Phil to the sophomore reception.” 

“ Why in the world should you do that? ” 

Day’s answer came flatly. 

“ Because no one else will be misguided enough to 
do it, if I don’t.” 

But Janet’s answer betrayed her greater amount of 
worldly wisdom. 

“ Day, you mole! Why can’t you see things as they 
are? Don’t you realize that, after yesterday’s election, 
Phyllis Stayre will be in a position to refuse more 
invitations than Sidney, when she was a freshman, ever 
thought of having? If Phyllis were ten times the 
behemoth that she is, as the sister of the senior president, 
she would never be left to sit it out alone.” 


30 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


Day attacked a side issue. 

“ She isn't altogether a behemoth, Janet." 

Janet sniffed, while she picked a bit of lint from the 
point of her pen; 

“ Precious near," she contradicted. 

“ Exactly; but not quite. The margin makes all the 
trouble. Without it, one would feel quite justified in 
leaving her to go her ways. Meanwhile, are you going 
to the sophomore reception? " 

*' 1 Not if I can help myself." 

“ You can't; not in human decency, with all that mob 
of freshmen to be looked out for. Come along with 
me, now. I’ll ask Phil, and you can take Marguerite 
Veronica. Then, if any skeletons stalk forth, we can 
combine to hold them inside the family limits." 

“ But I don't want to go," Janet protested. “ I 
hate such crowds; one can't dance, only just hop up 
and down. Besides, seniors ought to be immune from 
baby things like that. And, besides, I want to rest up, 
so that I can enjoy myself, next day." 

“ Fudge! " And then a naughty light came into Day’s 
brown eyes. “ If you don't go," she threatened; “ I'll 
ask Phil to go off with us, Mountain Day. Then where'll 
you be? " 

“ At home," Janet told her tersely. Then she cast 
her essay, inky and incomplete, inside the desk. “ Come 
along, you tyrant," she added, as she rose. “ This 
sort of thing is nothing but a species of moral hold-up; 
but, if it's a question between the sophomore reception 
and having Phil go with us, Mountain Day, I’ll choose 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


31 


the lesser ill, and clinch it as soon as possible. Has 
Amy’s mother come? ” 

“ Not yet. She’ll get here in time, though. What a 
shame your mother can’t go with us, too! ” 

“ She’d love it; but she’s like her daughter, a vic- 
tim to a sense of duty. Do come on, Day, if you’re 
coming. I could have finished up a dozen essays, while 
you dawdle.” And Janet caught her friend by the 
arm and marched her down the stairs and out across 
the sunny campus, already dappled with the falling 
leaves. 

Sidney, meanwhile, was over in Amy Pope’s room, 
seated in the place of honour, with a congratulatory 
group huddled about her knees, all of them talking 
at once and nobody listening to anybody else at all, 
while they recounted the glorious details of the class 
election, only the day before. 

“ It was what they call a sweeping victory,” one of 
them proclaimed at length; “ so sweeping that it 
didn’t leave much dust behind.” 

“ And yet, I am rather sorry for the other girl,” 
Sidney remarked thoughtfully. 

“ Sorry ! Sidney Stayre, didn’t you want to get elected 
senior president? ” the other demanded sternly. 

“ Helen Pope, I wanted it like mad,” Sidney con- 
fessed, and her voice sounded a little shamefaced over 
her own confession. “ That’s the very reason I know 
how it must hurt to be defeated.” 

“ But she had no reason to expect any thing else,” 
Helen objected. 


32 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


“ Neither had I,” Sidney made prompt retort. 

“ Oh! ” Helen closed the subject with the monosyllable 
much as she might have driven a cork into a bottle. 

Her roommate, Margaret Welch, took up a new 
division of the selfsame theme, for, in those early days 
of the opening fall term, no group of seniors could 
be long together without discussing matters of class 
politics. 

“ Anyway, I am glad the victory has swept,” she 
commented. “ Now, next thing, we want to do an- 
other sweeping, when we go about the play. Sidney, 
have you any special ideas that you would have urged 
on us, if the presidency hadn’t tied your hands? ” 

“ Tongue, you mean,” Sidney corrected her. “No; 
at least none that I can hand on to you. The pre- 
liminary committee knows more about it than I do.” 

“ Doubted,” Amy Pope put in. 

“ Then you must have been an inefficient chairman,” 
Sidney retorted, laughing. “ It’s not my business to 
go about, all summer, reading plays.” 

Amy shrugged her shoulders. 

“ I left that to the others,” she said calmly. “ For 
my share, I felt that it was enough to go up to Quebec 
and toil through all those Tercentenary pageants.” 

“Toil!” her sister echoed. “When we all were 
envying you with all our might and main. I even wrote, 
offering myself as understudy; but Amy assured me 
that she only did it from a sense of duty to the class, and 
that a sense of duty would carry her through it, even 
to the very end. But truly, Sidney, you must have 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


33 


had some choice, and I’d be glad to act as mouthpiece 
for your opinions, which probably are a good deal 
better than any of my own.” 

But Sidney shook her head. 

“ Better not, Helen ; thank you just the same.” 

“ Why not? ” 

“ We don’t want the meeting to look too much as 
if it were cut and dried beforehand.” 

“ It always is, though,” Helen protested. 

“ Yes, in a way. But,” Sidney straightened up in her 
chair; “ we girls want to look out a little, or it will 
be said that our set is going to run things for the whole 
class.” 

“ Why not? ” Margaret Welch objected. “ You 
know perfectly well that, except for you and Day, 
this house has all the nicest girls.” 

“ We think we have, that is,” Amy Pope corrected 
bluntly. “ Of course, there are always a few nice 
people who haven’t been discovered until senior year. 
Some of them may be turning up, any day.” 

“Then we’ll annex them,” Helen made prompt 
answer. 

Her sister’s retort was just as prompt. 

“ They may not care to be annexed. What are you 
saying, Margaret? ” 

“ Merely that they will be the exceptions that prove 
the rule. But now see here, Amy, there’s no use in 
being too humble concerning ourselves. Leaving 
out Sidney and Day who really belong to the crowd, 
this house has more celebrities, girls who really and 


34 


SIDNEY : HER SENIOR YEAR 


truly have done things for the college and the class, 
than any other house in town. It’s largely a matter of 
chance. Fate dropped us down in a bundle, freshman 
year, at Mother Leslie’s, and we have stayed in our 
bundle ever since, even if we did scatter into every 
house the campus holds. It was foreordained that 
we should come together, this last year; and I can’t 
see any harm in our going on planning things for the 
class, just as we always have done, even if we do happen 
to be together in one house.” 

It was not easy to answer Helen’s argument, off-hand. 
Sidney prudently shifted her ground a little. 

“ But the rest of the class are bound to get jealous.” 

“ Let them.” 

“ Once they get jealous, they’ll proceed to balk.” It 
was the basket ball captain who spoke, and her words 
carried the more weight, as every one present was 
quite well aware that they were ground out of long 
and hard experiences of just such balking. Prowess in 
basket ball does not, of necessity, depend upon the 
gentler moral graces. 

But Sidney was sitting forward in her chair, her chin 
on her cupped palms, her eyes upon the floor. 

“ This is the way I look at it, girls,” she said. “ As 
it happens, our own little set has held together, all 
through college. We think alike about most things; 
we want the class to stand for just about the same ideals. 
Moreover, as it also happens, we’ve held a majority 
of the most important class offices. For that very 
reason, we’re bound to get ourselves called a ring — we 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


35 


had a little taste of that, in freshman year — and to 
get our plans opposed, just because they happen to 
be our plans. Of course, we honestly think they are 
the best plans, all things considered, for the class. That 
is no reason, though, we shouldn’t give the other girls 
a chance to bring their own plans out for discussion. 
If ours are good for anything, they’ll stand comparison. 
If not, we’d better drop them. Myself, I believe in them 
enough to wish we could bring them out without much 
arrangement beforehand, just trundle them out before 
the class and leave them to stand there on their own 
merits. I honestly think it would be the fairest thing 
to do.” 

“ But the others will have their scheme all cut and 
dried. Probably it’s all planned out already just which 
girl will argue what,” Helen said gloomily. 

Quite unexpectedly to them all, her sister came to 
the support of Sidney. • 

“ I believe that the class has sufficient inborn common 
sense to see fair play,” she proclaimed. 

“ So do I, granted time enough,” Helen answered 
quickly. “ However, given the narrow limits of one 
class meeting, I prefer party organization.” 

“ But not boss rule,” Sidney added. “ Don’t be too 
optimistic, though, Helen. The question of the play has 
never yet been decided on in any one class meeting.” 

“ We have broken a few other precedents,” Helen 
retorted. “ I see no reason we shouldn’t pulverize this 
one, too.” 

“ Your theories are beauteous, Sidney.” The com- 


36 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


ment came from another of the group, a silent listener 
up till now. “ However, to step from theory to chill 
fact, who is your choice for chairman of dramatics? " 

“ Amy Pope/' Sidney made prompt reply. 

“ Me? I? Why for? ” The candidate bounced about 
to face Sidney, cutting off in its midst the low-voiced 
argument she had been holding with Margaret Welch. 

“ Because — But do you really want to know? You 
may not feel flattered," Sidney warned her. 

“ Go on, and get it over," Amy urged. “ It's better 
to hear such things said to your face than to have them 
come snailing up your backbone at unlikely moments." 

“ You'd better try for Ivy Oration, Amy," her sister 
advised her. “ Such wealth of metaphor ought not to 
be wasted." 

But Amy turned a deaf ear on her sister. 

“ Why me? Out with it! " she adjured Sidney. 

Sidney laughed. Then she emptied out the bundle 
of her opinions with the frankness of a well-tried 
friend. 

“ Because you have about as much feeling as a 
feather-bed. Because you always have a charming 
knack of getting your own way, by fair means or foul, 
by bullying or by blarney; and, what’s worse, you look 
so delighted over getting it that nobody has the heart 
to tell you what a wretch you've been. Then you have a 
little common sense, a good deal of bulldog courage 
and the habit of keeping any amount of little lists of 
things that you want to remember." 

“ Anything else? " Amy queried, breaking in upon 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


37 


the mirth which had followed Sidney’s remarkable 
finale. 

11 Yes. No conscience, and the inestimable advantage 
of having a summer’s coaching by Lascelles, and of 
seeing him manage a perfect caravan of actors.” 

“ And suppose I won’t? ” Amy asked her. 

“ Then Janet Leslie, of course,” some one suggested. 

Sidney vetoed the suggestion. 

“ Not Janet, of all people,” she said quickly. 

“ Why not? She’s good in dramatics.” 

“ Precisely. Therefore we can’t afford to waste her 
on the management. Never mind now, Amy. Your 
thanks will keep over, till we have more time. Besides 
that, Janet would have the whole cast by the ears in 
less time than it takes to say Tiglath Pileser. You know 
her ways. We all love her; but, at a time like this, 
we can’t afford to let that count. Janet hasn’t an 
ounce of management; and, last summer, she proved 
that she could act, act to a larger audience, and hold it, 
too, than any we shall have. As for Amy, she’s a born 
manager; but her acting is — ” 

“ Pokeristic,” Amy cut in. “ 1 agree with Sidney 
that there would not be any especial waste of talent, 
if I were put on the committee. Moreover, I’ve seen 
Janet act — in more ways than one. Sidney, do you 
remember that one night, after Jack had told us he was 
to take Mr. Savarin’s place, last summer? ” 

“ What was that? ” her sister demanded. “ You 
never told us about it, Amy.” 

“ It was most un tellable, also most dramatic. Janet 


38 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


as the haughty modern lady quite outdid her own Madame 
Champlain. That is all I shall tell you, so you needn’t 
tease; but you can take my word for it that Janet 
Leslie, when she chooses, can be an actor of sorts, 
all sorts.” 

And, while this discussion was going on in the invi- 
tation house just off the campus, the actor of sorts was 
helping Day Argyle to conduct a discussion of quite 
another kind. 

They had found Phyllis wrestling with a weak-backed 
lexicon which had descended to her from Wade by way of 
Sidney. The lexicon had become flabby and inverte- 
brate in the course of its long life ; but its tendency to shed 
its leaves out on the floor was not wholly accountable for 
the gloom that lay upon the brow of Phyllis. Across the 
room, Marguerite Veronica sat curled up among the 
parti-coloured cushions which sought to disguise her 
bed into the semblance of a mere ornamental, day- 
time couch, sat and plied her needle with an industrious 
absorption in her own embroidery which gave the 
lie to her flushed cheeks and reddened lids. Both 
girls looked up and nodded, as their guests came in. 
Phyllis’s nod was curt; that of Marguerite Veronica 
was full of a silent appeal for sympathy and for upper- 
class protection. 

Day, noting the appeal, went to sit down beside her, 
then she took up a corner of the embroidered pillow 
cover which dangled from Marguerite Veronica’s ringed 
hands. 

" What a pretty thing, Marguerite! ” 


SIDNEY : HER SENIOR YEAR 


39 


“You think so? ” The appeal for protection was 
also in the tone. 

“ Of course. Who could help it? ” 

“ I could,” Phyllis said bluntly. “ That’s the cause 
of the present row.” 

“ Row? ” Day’s tone was politely inquiring. 

“ Yes, row,” Phyllis iterated curtly. “ Don’t be 
finicky, Day, and pretend you don’t understand plain 
English. Any girl with a brother like Rob Argyle is 
bound to know what slang means, and to use it, too.” 

Day yielded silent acquiescence to the argument, 
and Janet took her hand at the conversation. 

“ Well, what is the — the row? ” she asked, with a 
dainty emphasis upon the unlovely word, an emphasis 
that merely added fuel to the fires of Phyllis’s temper. 

“Nothing; only that Margaret,” Phyllis totally 
refused to contaminate her lips with the softer form 
of her roommate’s name; “ that Margaret isn’t con- 
tented to muss up her own bed with a lot of senseless 
pillows; but she insists upon it that I’ve got to have 
some, too.” 

“ Well? ” 

“ Well, I won’t. I don’t want the messy things around 
in my way, and she needn’t go to work to make me 
any.” 

“ Was she making this lovely one for you? ” Day’s 
tone suggested a reference to pearls and pigs. 

“ It’s very simple, and her bed makes the room look 
so very bare,” Marguerite Veronica interpolated, with- 
out a trace of the exuberance which, not so very long 


40 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


ago, she had brought to college with her out of her 
native West. 

“ Suppose it does? ” Phyllis responded curtly. “ It’s 
my bed; isn’t it? And a bed is a bed; isn’t it, not a 
parlour sofa? For my part, I like things to be just 
what they seem.” 

“ And people? ” Janet queried maliciously, for not 
all her loyalty to Sidney Stayre had as yet enabled her to 
tolerate Sidney’s sister Phyllis. 

Phyllis smoothed back her unruffled hair, once, 
twice. 

“ I always mean to let it appear just what I am at 
heart,” she said virtuously. 

Janet rose. 

“ I’m sorry,” she said, with a terseness whose point 
was destined to prick Phyllis in the days to come. 
“ Day, are you ready to come home? ” 

But, even in the face of what had gone before, Day 
still clung fast to her conscientious intentions. 

“ In just a minute, Janet. I came over, Phyllis, 
to see if you would let me take you to the sophomore 
reception, next week.” 

There was an instant’s hesitation. The reply, when 
it came, was crushing. 

“ Thank you, Day,” Phyllis said, with elaborate 
courtesy. “ I am sure you are very kind to think of 
me. Unfortunately, though, you are a little late. Miss 
Alspaugh came over, yesterday, just before dinner, 
and invited me to go with her. She is the junior vice- 
president, you know,” she added, in courteous ex- 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


41 


planation to whomsoever the intelligence might con- 
cern. 

And Day departed, hugging her satisfied conscience 
in her arms. In her own great relief, she quite forgot, 
until a good hour later, to remind Janet that they had 
made no queries regarding the plans of Marguerite 
Veronica. 

Reminded, Janet gave a perverse little laugh. 

“ It always does pay to be cantankerous/’ she said. 
“ One gets ten times the attention that the meek ones 
do. I more than half suspect that Phyllis is choosing 
the shortest path to social greatness, after all.” 


CHAPTER FOUR 


C ERTAIN traditions are wellnigh unbreakable at 
Smith. One of these traditions demands that, on 
a night early in the opening year, the sophomores 
shall receive their friends and make merry with them. 
Another tradition ordains that, on the following day, 
all the college and even a few of the faculty shall betake 
themselves to the autumn woods, to drink in the bracing 
tang of the October air, and to rejoice their eyes with the 
glowing tints of the ripened trees. Nowhere else in all 
the world does the coming autumn array itself in finer 
colours than in the outskirts of the aged Massachusetts 
town. Nowhere else are there such wide stretches 
of level meadows, all dull brown earth, bright brown 
heaps of ripened onions, pale brown stacks of corn and 
paler stretches of bleached grassland, all dotted over 
thickly with the golden disks of monstrous pumpkins. 
Nowhere else do the low mountains rise so bluely against 
a bluer sky. Nowhere else do the forests take on such 
flaming, flaunting hues, yellow and orange, scarlet and 
tawny red. If any man doubt it, let him ask any one 
of all the graduates of Smith, ask and then note the 
answer. Nowhere else in all the world. 

Day Argyle waked up early* on the morning of 
Mountain Day of her senior year. An excursion to 



“Nowhere else in all the world does the coming autumn array 
itself in finer colors.” Page 42 



SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


43 


the nearest window assured her that already the sky 
was bright enough to match her anticipations. Then 
ruthlessly she stirred up Sidney. 

“ Wake up, you dormouse,” she ordered her drowsy 
roommate, the while she pounced upon the sleeper’s 
pillow. “ Get up and dress yourself, even if you are 
senior president. Do you realize that the car will be 
here, the minute we’re through breakfast, and that all 
that fruit is waiting, down town, and won’t come up 
to find us? ” 

And Sidney rose and rubbed her sleepy eyes without a 
murmur. The prospect of the day before them was 
enough to call even a senior president from the rosiest 
of dreams. 

The day, in fact, was to be somewhat of the nature of 
a reunion. For nine weeks of the previous summer, 
Janet and Sidney, Amy Pope and the two Argyles, to- 
gether with a young cousin of Sidney, and Rob Argyle’s 
chief friend, Jack Blanchard, had been together in the 
old Leslie house in Quebec. The summer had been an 
exciting season, not only by reason of the share the 
young people had taken in the ancient city’s birthday 
celebration, but from their domestic happenings as 
well. The old stone house had held many divers in- 
terests of work and play, that summer; and for a 
season it also had held strife almost amounting to a 
civil war. Out of the strife, however, had grown some 
lasting friendships; and, at the very end, all bitter- 
ness had vanished, leaving behind it only the memory 
of the pleasant things. 


44 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


Accordingly, it was no especial wonder that the 
three boys had decided to take advantage of the longest 
holiday of the greatest number, and to descend upon 
the college for Mountain Day. Amy Pope had im- 
ported her mother byway of chaperon; Jack Blanchard 
had appeared from New York, the noon before, Rob from 
Cambridge, that same night, while Paul Addison had 
taken the four girls completely by surprise by walking 
in upon them just after dinner. 

“ Suppose I was going to be left out of this circus? ” 
he made laconic query. “Not on your life! Williams 
is only half a block away, and Fve been saving up my 
cuts, all this term, for the benefit of this one expedi- 
tion.” 

“All this term, you sinner!” Sidney said, as she 
picked herself out of his cousinly embrace. “ That 
is exactly two whole weeks. Still, you were an angel to 
come down.” 

Paul cast an anxious glance at his shoulders, as he 
gave his hand to Janet. 

“ Oh, I hope not,” he said hastily. “ It must be 
blasted uncomfortable to have to sit on the corners 
of your wings.” 

Mrs. Pope, that night, played hostess and propriety 
for the gay septette in one of the reception rooms at the 
Inn. It was the first time she had seen any of the boys; 
she knew little about them, outside of Amy’s enthu- 
siastic bulletins concerning the summer’s progress, and 
some of the bulletins had caused no little uneasiness 
within her motherly soul. On this account, therefore, 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


45 


she studied the three boys keenly, the while she listened 
to their jovial talk and answered it in kind. Rob 
Argyle she dismissed without a question. His relation- 
ship to Day would have been enough, even without his 
face and bearing. No one, in fact, could ever look into 
Rob Argyle’s dark blue eyes, could listen to his jolly 
laugh, could see his strong and well-knit figure which 
even his slight lameness was powerless to render awk- 
ward : no one could spend a dozen minutes face to face 
with Rob Argyle without accepting him for what he 
was, admirable, honourable. As for Paul Addison, 
he belonged to the same great class of healthy, high- 
minded college boys, a little less mature than Rob, 
a little bit more irresponsible, but just as well-bred, 
just as bright and sane, the sort of boy whom, quite 
by instinct, every girl is sure to choose as chum. 

It was upon Jack Blanchard, though, that Mrs. 
Pope’s eyes rested longest; and, as they rested, her 
wonder grew and grew. Jack Blanchard, in his out- 
ward seeming, was wholly alien to his story, as she had 
heard it from her daughter’s lips, wholly alien to the 
self-assertive pseudo gentleman whom her maternal 
fears had constructed out of her daughter’s enthusiastic 
words. To be sure, Amy Pope, by birth and by family 
tradition, ought to have been able to recognize gentle- 
hood at sight. None the less, Mrs. Pope had been dis- 
tinctly uneasy, when she reflected on the sentimental 
haze that too often veils the crudeness of one risen from 
the ranks, and she had taken her first opportunity 
of looking over this young Canadian, who seemed able 


46 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


to win the liking of all his chance companions, even 
to her own young daughter. The bare fact of his 
story was not reassuring, for Jack Blanchard, when 
the Argyles first had met him, had worn the uniform of 
the Pullman company; and Mrs. Pope had braced 
herself to meet the little strut and swagger which, she 
told herself, invariably accompanied the wearing of 
brass buttons. 

To her extreme surprise, she found herself confronted 
with a wide-shouldered, steady-eyed young man whose 
well-bred ease matched that of Rob, whose dignity was 
even greater, a man who was well on in the later twenties, 
well-poised, well-groomed, and only missing great good 
looks by reason of an ugly scar across his temple, a scar 
adored by Day and Sidney, as being his badge of 
greatest honour, and speedily forgotten when one 
turned from it to look into the true brown eyes that 
seemed never to have known fear or shame. For one 
short instant, the eyes met those of Mrs. Pope. There 
was mutual interchange of question, answer. The next 
instant, though the wonder grew and grew, Mrs. Pope 
had yet dismissed all question. To her maturer eyes, it 
was plain that Amy’s statements concerning Jack’s 
parentage had been by no means all of them based upon 
the imaginings of girlish sentiment. As for his manli- 
ness and honour — No wonder that, in the strife of the 
preceding summer, Amy had been glad to take her stand 
upon his side. And yet — Mrs. Pope gave a little 
sigh of complete relief when, the greetings over, 
Sidney Stayre dropped down at Jack Blanchard’s 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


47 


side, and quite frankly fell to monopolizing his atten- 
tion. 

A little later on, that evening, Day excused herself 
and Sidney, and the two girls departed, leaving Paul 
and Rob and Jack to the tender mercies of Janet and 
the Popes. It would not be quite decent, Day ex- 
plained, if the senior president did not show herself for 
just one dance at the sophomore reception. She would 
go, too, and make sure that Sidney returned to them, at 
the earliest possible moment. Accordingly, the two 
friends departed, arm in arm, the one to make her official 
turn about the floor, the other, a world of mischief in her 
brown eyes, to scour the place in search of Phyllis and 
find out, if she could, how the girl was enjoying herself. 

The shortest possible search sufficed. Day found 
Phyllis in the foremost rank of the gallery, a buxom 
matron upon either side, and her escort, looking some- 
what jaded, leaning diagonally across the nearer ma- 
tron, to rest one guardian hand upon the back of Phyllis’s 
chair. The position was as arduous as had been the 
conversation, yet sturdily the budding politician held 
her ground, since no one knew, nor was ever like to 
know, what waves of public opinion were to start forth 
from this strange sister of the senior president. What- 
ever might be the nature of such waves, no one, seeing 
Phyllis, could ever doubt their potential energy. 

Quite unperceived by either girl, Day came up be- 
hind them and stood there for a moment, looking down 
upon the pretty scene below. As she looked, there came 
into her throat a little aching lump, came there for the 


48 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


first of many times of all that senior year, the little 
lump arisen from the thought that, for her student 
self, this was the last time she would be standing there, 
one of the jolly students making merry after their 
traditional custom. For the first time, it suddenly 
dawned on Day Argyle that it was not altogether good 
to be a senior. What was the song Jack used to hum? 

“ Like an ancient river flowing 
From the mountain to the sea, 

So we follow, coming, going — ” 

Her brown eyes were curiously gentle, as they gazed 
down across the wistaria-decked room, across the tight- 
packed throng of girls, laughing, chattering, dancing, 
tossing salutations to and fro over each other’s shoulders, 
girls in French embroideries and girls in plain tucked 
muslins, all jumbled in together into one merry mass, 
all too intent upon the passing hour to heed the ques- 
tions rising in Day’s mind. But did the drops never 
wish they could free themselves a little, and turn back 
against the tide? Was any other life quite so dear and 
jolly as was this? She shook away her thoughts, and 
spoke to Phyllis who was gloomily eyeing the floor 
beneath. 

“ Having a good time, Phil? ” she called across the 
intervening backs. 

Phyllis turned her head, and bent on Day the same 
glare she had been bestowing on the floor. 

“ No. Of course not.” 

“ Sorry. Why not? ” 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


49 


Phyllis hurled the question back at her. 

“ Why should I? ” 

“ Oh, it's so pretty. Aren’t the girls dear, to- 
night? ” 

“ Very likely they are always dear, when one comes 
to know them well,” Phyllis proclaimed stiffly. 

“ But in their pretty frocks? ” Day urged. 

“ I,” Phyllis laid a heavy stress upon the pronoun; 
“ have never found that pretty frocks affected one’s 
moral nature.” 

“ I have,” Day assured her cheerily, while she turned 
her eyes expressively towards Phyllis’s jaded-looking 
escort. “ I am always better tempered, when I’ve a 
becoming gown. Why aren’t you down there on the 
floor, Phil, and enjoying yourself with the others? ” 

Phyllis answered her with some asperity. 

“ You know perfectly well, Day Argyle, that I don’t 
know how to dance.” 

“ Gome and learn, then,” Day suggested rashly. 
“ The Alpha room is open and almost empty.” 

“ Then go and dance in it,” Phyllis advised her. 
“ For my own part, I’ve never cared to hop about the 
floor like a — a capering monkey.” 

There was no especial wonder that a pause should 
follow. Phyllis herself broke it, moodily and with her 
gaze once more upon the floor beneath. 

“ I,” again came the accent upon the pronoun; “ I 
should hate to be as popular a girl as Sidney.” 

“ I wouldn’t worry about that, if I were you,” Day 
assured her sweetly. Then, without waiting to pro- 


50 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


long the conversation further, she left Phyllis to her 
lawful escort, and went down in search of Sidney. 

“ Do you think Sidney minds? ” Rob asked his 
sister, the next day. 

Forgetting her mirth over the recital of her last 
night’s conversation, Day’s brown eyes grew grave. 

“ More than she cares to have any of us know,” 
she said. “ It’s not that she’s just ashamed of Phyllis 
and hurt upon her own account, Rob; but, after a 
fashion, Sidney loves the girl.” 

“ How can she? ” 

“ Sidney is large enough for almost anything,” Day 
answered; “ large enough to believe that, under all 
her crankiness, Phil has a certain streak of goodness. 
I confess, though, I can’t see where.” 

“ Nor I,” Rob pondered. “ Do you really think 
she cares for Phil; or does she just shut her teeth and 
make the best of her? ” 

“ She really does care for her, Rob. To be sure, 
Phil is as decent to Sidney as it’s in her to be to any 
girl. When they are alone together, Sidney says she’s 
like another person.” 

Rob shook his yellow head at his clasped thumbs. 

“ Sidney always was an optimist,” he murmured. 

Day suppressed her laugh as unregenerate, but not 
her words. 

“ Now and then she needs to be,” she said. 

It was high noon of Mountain Day, their long-ex- 
pected ‘Mountain Day. Under the hot sun of midday, 
the little party were sitting on the dusty roadside grass, 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


51 


less than a mile from home, eating their luncheon and 
pretending to admire the view. As the view consisted 
of a red brick factory with three tall chimneys, and, 
beside it, an open field where a blue-jumpered man was 
digging potatoes, their efforts at enthusiasm by now had 
worn a little threadbare. Before them in the dusty 
road stood the great blue touring car which Rob had 
ordered up from Springfield for the long day’s run, 
and, on his back beneath the car, prone in the sand, 
lay the chauffeur, seeking the reason that the car refused 
to budge another inch. Moreover, the chauffeur had 
lain there, seeking, occasionally coming up to breathe 
and shake the sand out of his collar, then wriggling 
back again, while the dew of morning burned off the 
fields, and the sun of noon mounted the heavens. And, 
meanwhile, there had slowly trickled past them a stream 
of girls in every variety of humbler conveyance, girls 
who, five hours before, had watched with envious eyes 
their haughty exit from the campus. 

Suddenly Janet flirted the crumbs from her lap, and 
started to her feet. 

“ I’m not naturally sensitive, girls; but I must 
vanish,” she said hastily. “ Here comes my roommate, 
in that surrey; and, for two weeks, I have been im- 
pressing it upon her that I could not go off for a drive 
with her, because we had planned this all-day motor 
trip. Paul, are you going to help me to escape? ” 

Paul glanced up from the paper in his hand. 

“ By and by, Janet,” he said. “ I am busy now. Amy 
and I are going to play a memorial game of tit-tat-too. 


52 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


We passed many pleasant hours playing it, you know, 
the last time that our progress was arrested.” 

“ Have you heard from the baby lately, Amy? ” 
Jack asked, as he arose and prepared to follow Janet. 

“Yes. I had a letter from her ladyship, last week. 
Arthur Eugene is well and cutting some more teeth.” 

“ I am sorry for her, then,” Jack said fervently, for 
there had been something to be desired in the temper 
of the baby whom Amy once had rescued from a pos- 
sible asylum and given over to the care of a certain 
Lady Wadhams. 

“ I am more sorry for him,” Amy retorted. “ Suppose 
you had been named Arthur Eugene! It’s enough 
to — ” 

“ Mote the unmo table,” Paul cut in suddenly. “ By 
Jove, he’s got it at last! ” And the smiling, smeary 
countenance of the chauffeur, as he crawled stiffly out 
from his narrow quarters, was enough to confirm Paul’s 
words. 

“Quick! Get the things in, before that snail of a 
surrey gets here! ” Janet ordered. “ I simply will not 
have those girls find out how we have sat here, this 
whole livelong morning.” 

But the surrey was alongside, long before the luncheon 
baskets were packed on board, and the car had ended 
its preliminary growls and purrings. Janet met their 
questions loftily. 

“ Yes. It was such a lovely day, we decided to save our 
main trip for the afternoon and evening,” she said 
blandly. “ We’re just starting now, so perhaps you’d 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


53 


best keep back a little; else, we’ll have to pass you in 
a minute.” 

At the chauffeur’s express desire, he was allowed a 
place back in the car where he could listen, for a little, 
to the whirring of the motors. Jack took the wheel, 
for, long since, he had learned to run the Argyle 
car. 

“ Who is coming up beside me? ” he asked, as his 
eyes, sweeping from Amy to Janet, finally came to 
rest on Day. 

And Day took her place beside him. 

All through the morning long, Day’s mood of the 
night before had hung about her. It did not sadden 
her now; it only made her the quicker to snatch the 
happiness out of every passing minute; it only made 
her a little gentler in her judgments, even of the in- 
evitable discomforts of their long halt beside the dusty 
road. Now, mounted at Jack’s side and once more in 
motion, it seemed to the girl that her content was full. 
Around her, the country spread away, hill rising gently 
over hill, the nearer ones blazing with yellow birch and 
tawny oak and flaming scarlet maple, those more distant 
turning to a vivid blue wall above which the paler sky 
rose to an arching, gleaming zenith. Beneath her, the car 
hummed steadily; and beside her was Jack, his brown 
eyes on the road before him, his lean brown hands upon 
the wheel, speechless, but yielding tacit answer to her 
unspoken mood. Day nestled towards him suddenly. 
Long since, both she and Jack had wellnigh ceased to 
be aware that he was not her own real brother, but 


54 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


merely her father’s secretary and an alien informally 
adopted into the Argyle home. 

“ I’m so happy, Jack,” she told him. “ Isn’t it 
perfect: the day, and all the rest of it? ” 

“ Even the morning? ” he inquired, his eyes still 
on the road before him. 

“ By comparison, yes. Besides, what difference? 
It just postponed the fun a little. There’s a full moon, 
you know, and Mrs. Pope says we needn’t hurry back. 
Oh — Jack! ” 

As if in answer to her sudden exclamation, Jack 
nodded shortly, and shut his teeth, while his lean hands 
clinched themselves upon the wheel. Out from the 
farmhouse yard beside the road, a stout old collie, slow 
and clumsy with his years, came shuffling across their 
course. It was evident that the years had made him 
deaf, as well as slow and portly, for he came shuffling 
forward, heedless of the warning screeches of the motor. 
At last, however, he appeared to feel its throbbing; 
and he came to a sudden halt, turning his whitening 
muzzle and his kindly, anxious eyes full on the approach- 
ing car, now barely twenty feet away, while his vener- 
able tail wagged a deprecating welcome. Day shut her 
hands together, turned her eyes away from the trusting, 
reproachful gaze bent on the car and fixed them on 
Jack’s face, whitening a little beneath its summer tan. 
His hands shut harder on the wheel, and the car veered 
sharply to one side, clearing the dog by a bare tail- 
length. Then, before it could be steadied into its new 
course, it had run into a rut, and from the rut into a 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


55 


puddle. There it skidded sharply, swerved again, 
crossed the road and went crashing through a rail fence 
to come to a halt, sudden and violent, against a wood- 
pile just beyond. 

If the car had been speeding, Day’s college course 
would have come to an abrupt end. Even a twelve- 
mile rate, however, can give much force to a large-sized 
touring car, and the sudden bump against the woodpile 
threw them helter-skelter from their seats. When they 
picked themselves up from the bottom of the car and 
called the roll of their small bruises, one voice was 
missing. Jack, thrown completely from the car, lay 
on the ground beside the woodpile, while beside him, 
gently licking his white face, stood the stout old collie 
he had saved, uninjured. 


CHAPTER FIVE 


TT7HEN Phyllis heard the news, — 

▼ V “ After all, Sidney,” she said, with an asperity 
born of her first ride in a hayrack, an all-day ride and 
over sundry hummocky hills; “ after all, it does seem a 
little like the clutching hand of retributive justice.” 

For the once, Sidney was too intent upon the fact to 
heed the sounding phrase. 

“ Justice, Phil!” she rebelled. “ Justice for dear 
old Jack to get a broken rib and a cracked ankle bone! ” 

Phyllis shifted her ground a little. 

“ Seems to me Jack is always having things happen 
to him,” she observed. 

“ Because he always forgets about himself, when it’s 
a case of looking out for other people,” Sidney reminded 
her gently.* 

Phyllis had the grace to blush. Jack’s worst scar 
had come out of the evening he had saved her from a 
hideous, fiery death. Nevertheless, — 

“ A dog is not a person,” she argued, after a minute. 

“ No.” 

“ And he had no right to jeopardize all your lives for 
the sake of a mere dumb brute.” 

Sidney rose, her cheeks scarlet, her eyes glittering 
with unshed tears. 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


57 


“ He didn't jeopardize our lives/' she said a little 
shortly. “ The car skidded; that was all." Then she 
flung her arm across her sister's shoulder. “ Phil, 
don’t you care for anybody, even Jack? " she besought 
her. 

For just a moment, the pale eyes clouded, and below 
them the chin quivered. But, because the hayrack 
had had a middle hollow bordered with sharp-edged 
boards, Phyllis made lofty answer, — 

“ Of course, Sidney. What a foolish question ! How- 
ever, even the fact that I care a great deal for Jack 
ought not to stultify my judgment." 

Then, inasmuch as she really did love Jack well, and 
also because she was tired and nervous and had held 
out as long as she possibly could, Phyllis's head went 
down on Sidney's shoulder, and the tears came fast. 

Quickly she brushed them away again, however, 
lifted her head and stood facing Sidney, stiff and straight. 

“ What a fool I was to cry," she said roughly. “ Tell 
me, Sidney, what's the first thing I can do to help 
along? " 

“ Nothing to-night, dear." Sidney dropped down 
into a chair and turned to look up at her, wondering, 
as she so often had wondered before, just why it was 
that Phyllis was so chary of showing out her really kind 
heart. Granted the real need, Phyllis was quick to see, 
tireless to serve, patient, even, to bear. It was when 
life was at its smoothest that she stuck out her thorns. 
Sidney roused herself. 

“ What can I do? " Phyllis was demanding. 


58 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


“ Nothing at all, dear; only — ” To her own con- 
sternation as well as that of Phyllis, Sidney felt that 
her voice was breaking. The past two hours of anxiety 
and of hasty action had told even on her young, level 
nerves, and, moreover, she, like Day, was very, very fond 
of Jack. She felt a babyish longing to put her head down 
on her arm and cry, and cry, and cry. Then she steadied 
herself. Downstairs with Mrs. Leslie, Rob was waiting 
for her to finish telling Phyllis of the accident; and 
Rob, as she well knew, had scanty enjoyment of feminine 
tears. She steadied herself sharply. 

“ Only? ” Phyllis jogged her. 

“ Only cuddle me a little, Phil. It’s been an awful 
time for us all. We were miles from anywhere, not 
even a telephone in reach, and it seemed for a while — ” 
Sidney’s voice broke again. 

Phyllis sat down on the arm of Sidney’s chair, and 
rested her great, knuckly hand upon her sister’s throb- 
bing head. 

“ I wouldn’t cry, Sidney,” she said, with a slow, heavy 
kindliness quite alien to her customary nipping speech. 
“ Really, it won’t do any good. The worst is over now, 
for everybody but Jack. You say he’s at the hospital? ” 

“ Yes. It seemed as if we never could get him there. 
The car was broken a little; we couldn’t get word to 
anybody to come for him, and the nearest farmhouse 
was locked up. Paul started off at random to get help 
somewhere; but, before he came back, the chauffeur 
had patched up the car, and, after a fashion, we were 
able to get Jack to the hospital.” 


SIDNEY : HER SENIOR YEAR 


59 


“ Where is the hospital? ” 

Sidney made a vague gesture with her head. 

“ Out towards Florence.” 

“ Oh, I know the place. And then? ” 

“ Then Janet and Amy came home in the car. The 
rest of us waited to hear what the doctors said. Jack is 
so heavy, and he fell with such force that they say it is 
a wonder that he wasn’t killed.” 

“Hh!” Phyllis grunted. “ Lean consolation! How 
is he now? ” 

“ He was as comfortable as they could expect, when 
we left him.” 

“ When was that? ” 

“ About six.” 

“ How soon are you going back again? ” Phyllis 
demanded. 

“ Sometime to-morrow.” Sidney rose. “ Rob is 
waiting, Phil. I must go.” 

Obeying some sudden impulse, born of the after- 
noon’s alarms, she put up her face for a kiss. Grudg- 
ingly, but with mathematical precision, Phyllis placed 
the kiss upon the very middle of her forehead. 

“ Good night, Sid. Don’t worry; it will all come out 
right in the end,” she bade her sister, with a gruff kind- 
ness. Then, as the door closed after Sidney, she added 
to herself, “ Sometime to-morrow! Hh! ” 

A moment later, Marguerite Veronica appeared upon 
the threshold, yawning wearily, and Phyllis buried her 
long nose behind the nearest book. It was not until 
Marguerite Veronica had subsided, a mass of lace-edged 


60 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


frills, between the blankets and pulled the sheet up 
to shut the light out of her sleepy eyes that Phyllis 
vouchsafed to her a single glance. Then, lifting her 
head from her book, she turned her spectacles upon the 
sunburned countenance upon the pillow. 

“ Sleepy? ” she asked, with the same gruff kindliness 
she had bestowed on Sidney. “ All right. I’ll go to bed. 
I — I hope you’ll be rested in the morning — ” Phyllis 
swallowed, as if something choked her, then added in a 
sudden, spasmodic gulp, “ dear.” 

And Marguerite Veronica, tired as she was, lay awake 
long, that night, pondering the meaning of the unwonted 
outburst. Fortunately for her vanity, she had no notion 
that the real cause and object of the outburst was not 
her frilly, sunburned little self, but rather the picture of 
Jack Blanchard which was filling the whole foreground 
of her roommate’s mind. 

It was as Sidney had told her sister: for the first 
hour after the accident, the little group could have been 
no more helpless to act, had they been stranded on a 
desert island. They were on a lonely country road, 
miles and miles from any town. The one house dis- 
coverable in the neighbourhood was deserted by all 
its occupants besides the aged dog who, it must be 
confessed, was doing everything in his canine power 
to express his pity for the victim of the accident, his j 
anxiety to be of service. Had there been a telephone 
wire in sight, neither Rob nor Paul would have had 
the slightest hesitation in forcing an entrance to the 
house; but that thread of hope was denied them. All 


SIDNEY : HER SENIOR YEAR 


61 


they could do was to wait until help came, or until 
the chauffeur could contrive to get the car to running, 
and, while they waited, to make Jack as comfortable as 
possible upon the ground. Only slightly stunned by 
the shock of his fall, Jack had come to himself almost 
at once, and, disregarding his pain as best he could, 
he had set to work to allay the anguish of the girls. 
Paul, meanwhile, had gone rushing forward along the 
road in search of help, while Rob had returned to the 
nearest crossroads, there to mount guard, in the hope 
of waylaying some passer-by. He was still sitting on a 
fallen log, gloomily pondering on the chances of the 
next few weeks, as concerned his best friend, when the 
whirr of the car and a hail from Paul aroused him from 
his lonesome meditations. 

“ I came back just in time to see them starting off 
without me,” Paul explained, as the car drew up at 
Rob’s side. “ Tumble in, old man, any place you can 
find. Jack and his head nurse are bound to have the 
back seat to themselves. Here, get in here. I’ll sit 
on the floor and hang my heels outside.” And, with 
the girls huddled together in the middle of the car, 
and Paul’s long legs trailing out across the steps, the 
little party, jovial no longer, had set out for home. 

The hospital was very full just then; but the “ dogs’ 
room” was unoccupied, and there they carried Jack, 
too tired out with the pain to pay much heed to his 
surroundings. Next morning early, after a little fitful 
napping, he waked to watch the light in his room turn 
from gray to white, then yellow, and, as he watched it, 


62 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


his eyes rested contentedly upon the pictures of the 
great, friendly Saint Bernards in memory of whom the 
room was given. Jack smiled a little, as he lay and 
watched them. Broken bones were broken bones, and 
a dog was only a dog. However, granted that he 
himself was to be the only victim, he was glad that that 
friendly, wagging tail had not expressed its trust in 
vain. The first clear impression of his returning con- 
sciousness had been of two honest, pitiful brown eyes 
peering down into his own. To be sure, though, there 
was the office. His brows contracted. 

An instant later, his eyes grew keen, and he raised his 
head as far as prudence and a warning spasm of pain 
allowed him. From down upon the lawn below his open 
window, he heard two voices, low, but coming clearly 
up to him across the stillness of the early dawn. The 
one he recognized at once as belonging to Paul Addison. 
The other caused him a little longer uncertainty. 
Then, — 

“ By Jove, it’s Phil ! ” he muttered to himself. “ What 
in thunder is that child doing up here at such an unholy 
hour? ” 

In sheer astonishment, his head dropped back upon his 
pillow. Then, as the words of the low-voiced colloquy 
grew clearer, he craned his neck again to listen; and, 
listening, despite his broken bones and aching body, 
Jack Blanchard chuckled as he heard. 

The dawn had scarcely grayed the eastern edge of 
the sky when Phyllis was astir, that morning. With the 
stealthy step of a professional cracksman, she moved 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


63 


to and fro in her room, assaulting her hair with vicious 
strokes of the comb, preparatory to winding it into the 
tightest possible knob, and dragging on her various 
garments as if she were bent on reducing them to tatters 
in her haste. When the last hook and eye and pin were 
in place, she caught up her hat, skewered it firmly 
to the exact top of her head, softly left the room, softly 
let herself out of the great white front door whose big 
brass knocker clattered a muffled protest at this early 
violation of its morning nap. Then, treading very 
softly on the grass, Phyllis stepped to the street and 
turned northward. 

Once she was quite away from the house, her step 
quickened; and, in a comparatively short time, she 
had covered the intervening mile and was entering the 
grounds of the hospital. Then and then only did her 
step slow itself, not from fatigue, but from sheer un- 
certainty as to the next thing for her to do. Thor- 
oughly alarmed and unhappy about Jack, whom she 
long had counted as one of her best friends, Phyllis 
had slept but little, all the night before. Lying awake, 
she had done much thinking, had laid away many and 
many a plan as to how she could show her devotion in 
Jack’s behalf. Unhappily, the plans developed during 
the sleepless midnight hours do not always stand the 
clearer light of day; not, at least, without having 
their brightness faded a little by the glare. Phyllis’s 
morning exit had seemed to her, judged even in the 
gray of the dawn, a noble thing to do. Now, in the 
glittering light of sunrise, she began to doubt, to wish 


64 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


that she had stayed at home and telephoned. At that 
unseemly hour of the morning, it would be easier to 
explain the appearance of her anxious voice than of 
her tight-girt person which, as far as its looks went, 
might never have been to bed at all. And besides — 
She looked up sharply, as a step sounded on the gravel 
close behind her. 

She liked the look of what she saw: a tall, spare 
figure, a jovial freckled face, just now a little heavy-eyed 
and anxious. She liked the eyes especially, gray eyes 
and friendly, and holding in their depths a little spark 
of something that, under other circumstances, might 
develop into fun. Just now, however, their owner 
was too intent upon what lay before him to be in any 
mood for seeking fun. 

Phyllis looked him over from head to heel, came to 
the prompt decision that he was some hospital attend- 
ant, going on duty at that early hour, and shrewdly 
decided that, in any case, she would open conversation, 
if only to explain to him her presence there so early. 

“ I beg your pardon,” she said abruptly. 

Instantly the stranger halted, swept off his cap and 
stood there, bareheaded in the rising sunlight, awaiting 
her next word. 

The word, when it came, astonished him completely. 

“ What do you know about Mr. Blanchard? ” Phyllis 
demanded comprehensively. 

“ What do I know? About Jack Blanchard? ” 
In his amazement, the speaker cut her question into 
two exact halves. 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


65 


“ Yes ,” she said a little bit impatiently. “ Do you 
know who he is? ” 

“ Rather.” 

“ How is he? ” 

The stranger gasped before the fire of questions. 
Phyllis, in search for information, could have put a 
Gatling gun to shame. Then he rallied. 

“ Rather bad, I should imagine. He had an acci- 
dent, yesterday, and — ” 

“ Hhhm! ” Phyllis’s response was quite unspellable. 
“ What do you think brought me out here? ” 

“ You knew it, then? ” 

“ Of course,” she said tartly. “ Why shouldn’t I? ” 

Despite his manifest anxiety, the fun came now into 
the stranger’s eyes. 

“ The question is, why should you? ” he made delib- 
erate observation. 

Phyllis, never too long of temper, felt that this was 
no proper time for joking. 

“ I naturally would know about it,” she said loftily. 
“As it happens, my sister told me, last night. She 
was in it, too.” 

“ In? ” The stranger raised his eyes inquiringly, for 
Phyllis’s meaning seemed to him opaque. 

“ In the accident.” 

“ Your sister? ” 

Phyllis made a snatch at one corner of her patience 
and clung to it as hard as she was able. 

“ Yes. My sister, Sidney Stayre.” 

“ The deuce! ” 


66 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


“ You needn’t curse about it,” Phyllis rebuked him. 
“ 1 can see no reason that she shouldn’t tell me.” 

But, heedless of her argument, the stranger stood and 
gazed at her, as if spellbound. 

“ The deuce! ” he said again. “ Are you Tids’s sister? 
Who’d ever think it? ” 

His use of a nickname, known, as she supposed, to 
Wade alone, reduced Phyllis in her turn to a state of 
astonishment which deafened her to certain unflatter- 
ing cadences in his tone. 

“ Who are you? ” she demanded. 

“ Your cousin,” the stranger answered, and mirth, 
deprecation and an edge of regret were mingled in his 
voice. 

“ Are you Paul Addison? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Well, I’m Phyllis,” she said conclusively. “ What 
are you doing here? ” 

“ Same thing you are, apparently, trying to get 
some news of Jack. My train goes in about an hour, 
and I thought I’d get more out of these old duffers, if 
I came, instead of telephoning. But, I say,” his honest 
glance swept her from head to heel, a glance which 
seemed to Phyllis to be questioning, not critical; “do 
you mean to say you hauled yourself out of bed and 
came up here at this unholy hour, just for Jack, when 
you had the whole day before you? ” 

Something in his voice made Phyllis forget that, 
as a rule, it was her custom to become aggressive when 
her deeds were questioned. Instead, — 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


67 


“ I had to, I was so anxious,” she said simply. 

Again the gray eyes swept her over. This time, 
they held something akin to admiration in their gaze. 

“ Well, I must say, you’re a chum worth having,” 
their owner said abruptly. “Not many of us have 
such spunky friends to stand by us, when we’re knocked 
down and out. I say, cousin, give us your hand. I’ll 
be hanged if I don’t rather like you.” 

The family compact sealed, Paul spoke again. 

“ Perhaps, as long as I’m the man of this expedition, 
I’d best be the one to tackle the guardian of the watch. 
I’ll get all I can out of him, and leave a card with both 
our names on it — Hold on! ” Paul rummaged in his 
pockets. “ Write a message, yourself. He’ll like it all 
the better.” And, a moment later, card in hand, he 
went leaping up the steps. 

“ It’s good, as far as it goes,” he said, a little later, as 
he rejoined Phyllis and, beside her, turned to leave the 
grounds. “ It will lay him up for a season, and it’s 
bound to hurt. Still, it might have been worse, lots 
worse. Shall we take a car? No? All right, come on.” 

At the door of Mrs. Leslie’s house, he halted and held 
out his hand. 

“ I say,” he blurted out; “ I’m glad I’ve seen you. 
What’s more, I think maybe we’ve started out, good 
friends. Let’s keep it up. I’ll write you, in a day or 
two, to find out what you hear from Jack.” And then, 
because the time for his train was perilously near, he 
made a dash at a passing car and vanished within its 
doorway. 


68 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


For a moment, Phyllis stood looking after it, a new 
expression in her washed-out eyes. For the first time in 
her life, all her life, she had been taken as she was, 
had been liked, not in spite of herself, but because of it. 
Then, the new light still in her eyes, she turned away, 
opened the door and mounted to her room, there to 
surprise Marguerite Veronica, drowsily brushing out 
her curly locks, by the quality of her morning greeting. 

Two hours later, however, as if to belie, even to herself, 
her previous mood of kindliness, she recurred to her 
theory of retributive justice. 

This time, Janet was the recipient of her views. Janet, 
dropping into her mother’s room to see if Mrs. Leslie 
had any later news of Jack, had crossed the hall to leave 
a message from Sidney. She found Phyllis quite alone, 
for Marguerite Veronica was at recitation, and Phyllis, 
taken by herself, was not a potent magnet to attract 
chance callers. 

“ But I can’t see any justice about it,” Janet re- 
marked, after Phyllis had set forth her views at 
length. 

“ Justice often smites sidewise,” Phyllis answered 
her ponderously. 

“ Yes; but what had anybody done to deserve 
smiting? ” Janet queried, not from contrariety, but from 
an honest wish for information. 

“ The natural thing for you four girls to have done,” 
Phyllis told her virtuously ; “ especially on this final 
Mountain Day of your college course, would have been 
to have thrown yourselves, heart and soul, into the 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


69 


plans of your classmates, not go off with a party of 
mere outsiders.” 

“ Oh! ” Janet's comment was terse, but not exactly 
reverent. “ But we liked this better.” 

“ The greater pleasure doesn't always come out of one's 
personal likings,” Phyllis made sententious rejoinder. 

A naughty light came into Janet's eyes. 

“ Bid you have a good Mountain Day, Phil? ” she 
asked .discursively. 

“ Very.” Phyllis's tone was prim. 

“ What did you do? ” 

“ We went to Shutesbury.” 

“ I know. Is it a pretty town? ” 

“ Ye-es.” 

“ What did you do there? ” Janet pursued. 

Phyllis hesitated. 

“ We ate our lunch in a pasture. Then some of the 
girls rode horseback. There were some horses in the 
pasture.” 

“ What did you do? You don't ride; do you? ” 

“ 1 — I went to walk in the graveyards,” Phyllis 
explained conscientiously. “ They were very old ones, 
and I thought they might be interesting.” 

Janet abandoned that line of question. 

“ And what did you do all the way up and back? ” 
she queried innocently. 

Phyllis smothered a reminiscent groan. 

“ We lay on the hay, and — and sang Alma Mater” 
she replied, and, in spite of herself, a note of disdain 
rang in her voice. 


70 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


“ And you enjoyed it all, I suppose, as long as you 
were with your classmates/’ Janet observed, her eyes 
upon the tree outside the window. 

Too late, Phyllis realized the trap. Granted it must 
be sprung, however, she herself would do the springing. 
She smoothed back her hair and lifted up her chin. 

“ I don’t know when I have spent such a happy day,” 
she answered, in one magnificent, mendacious outburst. 

Then she suddenly remembered it was time she started 
for a recitation. 


CHAPTER SIX 


M RS. POPE was that rare type of woman who 
could make her social engagements yield to the 
advantage of her neighbour and to her own common 
sense. She had come to Northampton for a few days 
with her two daughters, before going to the Berkshire 
hills to begin a round of visits that would fill her time 
until late autumn. However, she was keen enough to 
see that Jack Blanchard’s convalescence, bound at 
best to be long and tiresome, could be materially 
lightened by frequent calls from his quartette of gay 
girl friends, granted the proper chaperon. Accordingly, 
yielding to an idea that most women would have dubbed 
hysterical, although it seemed to her a matter of sheer 
common sense, she had telegraphed to her first hostess, 
and written to her second and third. That done, she 
exchanged her temporary quarters for a larger room, 
unpacked her trunk down to the bottommost foundation 
layers, and prepared to settle down and, for a time, 
become that chaperon. 

“ Why not? ” she said to Mrs. Leslie. “ My husband 
is in South America. Till he comes back, I shall either 
live in a boarding-house, or visit. I may as well be 
near the girls as anywhere. Besides,” she added a little 
inconsequently; “ I like the boy.” 


72 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


And Mrs. Leslie assented, more for the sake of her 
own boy, absent in England, than for Jack. She liked 
Jack a good deal as a matter of course, because the 
others did. She had seen very little of him, however, 
during the four years since he and Janet had become 
acquainted; and she was quite British enough in all 
of her ideas never to down completely the memory of 
the brass buttons. Indeed, it had been only during the 
past summer and after weeks of struggle that Janet 
herself had been able to down, not the memory of 
them, but the prejudice that they called forth. But 
Mrs. Leslie had been in England, that past summer, 
and she had shared but few of Janet’s New York visits. 
Her knowledge of Jack, then, had been mainly limited 
to his occasional Sundays spent with Day at college. 
As for his growing friendship with Janet, Mrs. Leslie 
accepted it as more or less inevitable, but deplored it, 
even while she accepted. In her secret heart, she al- 
ways felt he might pull out a conductor’s punch and 
fall to work upon the nearest card-tray just at some 
highly inconvenient moment. On the other hand, Mrs. 
Pope, who had a Pilgrim ancestor for every finger and 
thumb, at the end of her first hour’s talk with Jack 
had accepted him quite simply and for what he was: 
an intelligent and honest gentleman. 

Accordingly, then, for the next few weeks, Mrs. Pope 
took up her abode beside the campus, where she swiftly 
became a species of honorary member of the senior class, 
useful, valuable, and pampered. Always ready for a 
frolic at any hour from dawn to dusk, always just as 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


73 


ready to settle down, thimble in hand, in Amy’s room, 
or in that of Sidney or Day, the two main centres of 
the senior life, she made herself a boon comrade of 
each one of the girls in turn, seemingly as young as 
they, yet never failing to add a guiding word of ma- 
turer wisdom in times of student indecision. Bit by 
bit, even the girls nearer the outside edges of the circle 
came to count on asking her advice, on taking it when 
given, even on swallowing the little lectures she be- 
stowed upon them, every now and then, apropos of some 
bit of worldly knowledge whose facts they had reported 
quite awry. The lectures were made the more palatable, 
doubtless, by Mrs. Pope’s gay voice and pretty frocks, 
by her quiet way of taking it for granted that she knew 
the world only at its best; not at its richest, but at its 
most refined. Occasionally, too, her lectures needed 
something to make them palatable. Snobbery she 
hated, and any touch of loudness in dress or manner; 
moreover, asked, she never held back her opinion. Yet, 
strange to say, the girls received her lectures meekly, 
for they were fast coming, in those autumn weeks, 
to the sad realization that, for them, girl-time was 
almost ended, that, within a few short months, they 
would be pushed gently forward out of college and 
into the uncharted seas of the world beyond, of self- 
controlling womanhood, for which, after all said and 
done, their Greek and history and science had done so 
little to prepare them. 

“ Mother’s elective,” Amy came in time to dub 
the afternoons when they all sat together, as many of 


74 


SIDNEY : HER SENIOR YEAR 


them as could pack themselves on chairs and beds and 
floor, and talked over bit by bit the problems that would 
confront them in the life beyond. In the time of it, 
to all but Mrs. Pope herself, the discussions seemed 
casual, futile, almost frivolous in their point of view. 
Later on, years later, not one of the girls failed to think 
back to those idle talks, and to be grateful for some 
trivial word culled from them. The “ elective,” however, 
was by no means always carried on within four walls. 
A dozen girls and a chance question sufficed to start 
it up, whether the dozen were afield, afloat, or clattering 
across the country in a trolley car. Moreover, after 
the discussion was at an end, the girls were always a 
little bit surprised to remember how slight Mrs. Pope’s 
spoken part in it had been. Often a short nod or two and 
a little word of assent left upon them the impression 
of a half-hour monologue. 

As the “ elective ” grew in popularity, the girls were 
a little inclined to grudge the daily hours which Mrs. 
Pope was spending at the hospital. At first, they had 
regarded it as a distinct advantage that she should 
have an outside interest to claim her, while they were 
busy or absorbed in other things. Bit by bit, however, 
they came to resent her manifest absorption in her in- 
valid, the increasing time she gave to him, now that his 
convalescence allowed him to receive longer visits. At 
least once in every day, Mrs. Pope boarded the car for 
the hospital, to stay there just as long as Jack’s strength 
and pleasure would allow. As a general rule, one of 
the girls was with her, sometimes Janet, but more often 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


75 


Sidney or Amy. Day, by reason of her semi-relation- 
ship and at her mother’s wish, dropped in upon Jack 
at all sorts of hours, sometimes with Mrs. Pope, some- 
times with only the nurse to play propriety. 

Jack’s welcome to the girls varied a little in its quality. 
The days were long, boresome and filled with no small 
amount of pain and weariness; and he was unfeignedly 
grateful to them all for stealing so much time out of 
their busy student lives to waste it, as he phrased it, 
upon him. Their visits'did him a world of good in more 
ways than one, and he took care to let them know it. 
However, Mrs. Pope, the one constant factor in all the 
visits, derived no small amusement from watching 
the different phases of his character which Jack dis- 
played to each in turn. He sparred with Janet, argued 
with Amy, confided in Sidney. With Day alone, he 
dropped it all, argument and sparring and even con- 
fidence, and treated her as if she were merely a part 
of his own life, very dear, very reliable and so familiar 
as’ to make all argument or explanation needless. With 
the other girls, there was the little glad excitement 
of their coming, the little chivalric effort, the only effort 
of which a man flat on his back was capable, to make 
them feel their welcome and to enjoy their stay. Their 
calls aroused him, cheered him, but also they tired him. 
Day’s calls left him rested, quiet, curiously refreshed. 
Nevertheless, an outsider, looking on, would have found 
it wellnigh impossible to discover wherein the difference 
lay. Day chaffed him, laughed with him, told over all 
her doings and demanded his advice just as the others 


76 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


did, only, perhaps, a little more specifically. None 
the less, there was a difference. Jack felt it, even if Day 
did not. 

“ But, Jack,” she said to him suddenly, one day; 
“ you certainly do have the most ignominious sources 
for your invalidisms.” 

Jack, promoted to a rolling chair and the great sun 
parlour overlooking the low western hills, now almost 
bare of coloured leaves, glanced up at the swift arraign- 
ment. 

“ Guilty,” he confessed. 

“ Whether it is worse: a leaky chafing-dish, or a senile 
collie? ” she propounded. “ If you were a proper sort 
of hero, Jack, you’d choose a more romantic way to go 
about it.” 

“ Hang it! I’m no hero, Day,” he protested, with a 
vigour which roused the nurse from her magazine and 
brought her to the rescue. 

“ Did you call, Mr. Blanchard? ” she inquired. 

Jack’s laugh was most healthily out of keeping with 
the details of his surroundings. 

“ I was merely calling down Miss Argyle. I’m so 
sorry I started you up by my energy,” he told her. 
“ I fear I’m a most troublesome patient. Go back and 
rest a little longer. I think you’ve built me up until I 
have strength to deal with Miss Argyle as she de- 
serves. ” 

The nurse laughed and nodded. Then she returned to 
her corner and her book. Long since, she had found 
out the curiously close relation that existed between 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


77 


her patient and his present guest. In fact, her charts 
alone would have betrayed it to her, without much 
other telling. Jack was never restless, his temperature 
never mounted by so much as a degree after Day’s calls. 

“ Yes, I know,” Day persisted, when once more the 
nurse was buried in the printed page before her; “ but 
it’s not quite decent for a man to have been through 
the Boer War, and to have travelled half a million 
miles or so, and then get himself laid low in ways that 
a reporter, that Wade Winthrop, for instance, would 
scorn to chronicle. Why can’t you be nice and roman- 
tic, Jack? ” 

Jack, lounging in his chair, studied her with leisurely, 
contented glances. Day was not pretty in the least, 
according to the judgment of a total stranger. Her 
friends, however, thought otherwise. And yet, her only 
claim to real beauty lay in her fluffy mop of pale brown 
hair, her brave brown eyes, now dancing with fun, 
now hazy with her girlish dreams, lay in her strong, 
lithe body, in her blending of gentleness and perfect 
health. She was restful, too. However eager she be- 
came, Day never interrupted, never fidgeted. She had 
all the time there was, and she saw to it that it should 
be quite enough. 

To-day, she seemed to Jack to be in her most attractive 
mood, gentle, but full of teasing fun which yielded every 
now and then to the little wave of sisterly affection that 
was close second to what she customarily reserved for 
Rob. She had come up, directly after chapel, to find 
Jack moved into the sun parlour for the first time, and 


78 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


her pleasure at this proof of his gain had flushed her 
cheeks and brightened the lustre of her eyes. Now, as 
she sat opposite him in her high-backed chair, her happy 
face framed with the drooping feathers of her wide 
green hat, it seemed to Jack, watching her, that he 
might search the broad world over, without finding an- 
other girl one half so comely. And better far than all 
her comeliness and, to Jack, more wonderful, was her 
quiet and complete forgetfulness that there was such 
a person in the world as Day Argyle. 

Now, a little restive at his silent scrutiny, she bent 
forward in her chair and broke in upon his musing 
with a question. 

“ Comfy, Jack? ” 

“ Completely. Don’t I look it? ” he returned, smiling 
across into her questioning face. 

“ Yes, as far as a man in hospital can do,” she re- 
sponded. “ However, I thought you seemed a little 
as if something were — well, worrying a little.” 

“I? Worrying? ” His eyes showed his astonishment 
at the charge. 

Day settled back again in her chair. 

“ Well, if you must have it out in plain Saxon,” she 
rebuked him gayly; “ you showed that you didn’t hear 
one single word I was saying.” 

“ I did, too,” he contradicted. “ You were raging 
at me because I didn’t choose my wreckages with care, 
and I was trying to decide how I could better my 
method.” 

“ By catching a runaway aeroplane by the tail, and 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


79 


helping a gauzy circus lady to climb down the nearest 
tree,” Day suggested. 

“ Where do I come in? ” 

“ She could make a misstep and tumble down on you 
and break your patella,” Day finished out her suggestion. 

“ 111 do it, next time,” Jack assured her gravely. 
“ That is, unless you’d rather I attacked a raging and 
spotted hyena.” 

But suddenly Day refused to laugh. 

“ Don’t have any more next times,” she besought him, 
and there came a new note in her gay young voice. 
“ Between you and Rob, it seems to me I never know 
an easy minute. Either he is straining his leg and being 
put to bed again, or else you are trying to keep somebody 
from being burned to death. Jack, I don’t mean to be 
like a clucking hen; but I believe, if I had another 
brother, real or adopted, I should be beside myself with 
worry.” 

“ But really, Day, it hasn’t been so bad, this time.” 

“ Bad ! ” Her glance swept from him to his surround- 
ings. “ Do you mean you enjoy this sort of thing? ” 

“ Not especially. Still — ” 

“ I should hope not,” she interrupted. “ And you 
don’t. Put out your hands, both of them, and see how 
all the tan is gone, and how lean they look. And see — ” 

His laugh sought to reassure her. 

“ But it really hasn’t been so .bad, Day,” he iterated. 
“ The worst of it was the knowing I was needed rather 
badly at the office. Otherwise — ” And then his 
voice dropped down an octave, as he added, “ Day, 


80 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


do you realize what a difference it has made, my being 
within hailing distance of you girls? ” 

“ It has saved me from a lot of worry,” she made 
practical rejoinder. “ Really, Jack, it's been a comfort 
to see for myself just how you were getting on. Rob 
and I were talking about that, after we were out here, 
last Sunday. I think, if I hadn’t been here to send home 
bulletins, Daddy would have moved up here and camped 
out on the lawn. By the way, I had a frenzied letter 
from Irene, last night. In the wild excitement of finding 
you had moved out here, I almost forgot to tell you.” 

“ What now? Has Wade been misbehaving? Irene 
isn’t prone to fits of frenzy.” 

“ No; it isn’t Wade. It’s only you.” 

“ What about me? I haven’t misbehaved,” Jack 
rebelled. 

“ WJiat about the wedding? ” Day queried pointedly. 

“ Oh, that.” Jack clasped his hands behind his head. 
“ What’s the rumpus about the wedding, Day? ” 

“ You needn’t sham,” Day rebuked him sternly. 
“ You are perfectly well aware that we, every single 
one of us who were in Quebec, last summer, have been 
holding our breath to see if you were going to get well 
in time.” 

“What a state of wholesale asphyxiation!” Jack 
made callous observation at the opposite wall. 

“ Wholesale alarm,” Day corrected grimly. “ There 
were a few days, young man, when it didn’t seem possible 
that you could come up to time.” 

*' And suppose I hadn’t? ” Jack inquired. 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


81 


“ Then I honestly believe that Wade Winthrop 
would have postponed the whole event/’ Day told him. 

Jack’s laugh was good to hear. 

“ I begin to see why Irene is in a state of frenzy/’ 
he responded. “ I confess, Day, it hadn’t occurred to 
me heretofore that the wedding couldn’t go on without 
me.” 

“ Don’t be so conceited, Jack,” Day warned him 
hastily. “ It could go on, of course. The rest of us 
would have seen to that. Possibly even we could have 
imported Lord Axmuthy to take your place.” 

“ He wouldn’t,” Jack interpolated. “ Axmuthy never 
would demean himself by packing it into the space 
set apart for mere me.” 

“ It? ” Day queried. 

“ His self. How else could you express him, Day? 
It suits him to a T.” 

“ You’re jealous.” 

“ Of? ” 

“ Because you’re not a British lordlet,” she explained. 
“ However, as Irene choked and had to be led away from 
the table, the only time she ever dined in his society, 
I hardly think he would consent to serve. Poor Sidney! 
I can’t say that I envy her her prospective cousin. Isn’t 
it about time he came over to get married? ” 

Jack yawned. 

“ Beg pardon,” he said, in hasty apology. “ For some 
obscure reason, Axmuthy always did make me drowsy. 
But I say, Day, your mind appears to run on weddings.” 

Day settled herself more cosily into her chair. 


82 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


“ Thank you so much for reminding me, Jack. I 
almost had forgotten. Now about Irene’s letter: she 
wants to know if there’s any doubt at all about your 
being able.” 

To her surprise, his colour came, and his eyes looked 
a little bit appealing. However, — 

“ Must I, Day? ” was all he said. 

“ Why not? ” 

“ Because — ” He hesitated. Then he faced her 
honestly. “ Because I’ve never done just that before, 
and — well, I’d a little rather not disgrace you.” 

“ You couldn’t,” she answered tersely. 

“ Remember all the years I was out of that sort of 
thing,” he reminded her. 

“ What if you were? That’s ages over.” 

“ Yes; but, since then, except in your vacations — ” 
he protested stumblingly. 

There was a little pause. Then Day lifted her eyes 
and rested them on his eyes gravely. 

“Jack,” she said; “I wish you wouldn’t distrust 
yourself, every now and then. It isn’t fair to yourself; 
but it’s a good deal more unfair to me. Do you suppose 
I’d have — have taken you for my adopted brother, 
if I had had any doubts about you? You ought to 
be as loyal to my judgment as I am to you.” Her voice 
lagged a little on the words. Then she spoke more 
alertly. “ As for your disgracing yourself or anybody 
else, that’s all fudge, to quote Phil’s elegant vocabulary. 
However, even if you did, it wouldn’t be fair to Irene 
to back out, now that her plans are made. When Wade 


SIDNEY : HER SENIOR YEAR 


83 


came up to Quebec in July, they settled all the details, 
and you agreed to them.” 

“ Yes.” Jack spoke now with determination, crisply. 
“ But that was before the row with Janet.” 

Day bit her lip. 

“ Jack,” she burst out, after a minute; “ does that 
nonsensical old fuss still hurt you? ” 

His colour came again. 

“ Yes, Day. It does.” 

And Day, as she thought backward, could not 
wonder. 

It had been no slight storm which had broken in upon 
their peaceful summer. As all the Argyles’ friends quite 
well understood, Mr. Argyle had taken his efficient 
secretary out of the command of a Pullman sleeping car. 
To the young secretary himself, and even to the Argyles, 
there had seemed nothing especially disgraceful in the 
fact, nothing to be concealed as criminal. Neither, 
drifting back to Quebec for a summer holiday, and finding 
one of his old associates down with enteric, had it 
seemed essentially disgraceful to Jack to spend a few 
of his idle weeks in the old uniform and among the 
duties of his old routine. The other man could ill 
afford a substitute. Jack was not sorry to have a chance 
to discover whether or not his more luxurious years 
had dwarfed him. He had waited only long enough 
to telephone to Mr. Argyle about his plan; then he had 
announced his intentions to the assembled household. 
Thence had arisen war, with Janet, British conservative 
and something of a snob withal, as leader of the opposi- 


84 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


tion; while, in the Argyles’ temporary absence, Amy 
Pope had been the first one to arise in Jack’s defence. 

The strife had been a bitter one; and, on Janet’s 
part, it had sought outlet in hard and biting words. 
Jack had shut his teeth and gone his way, without effort 
to justify himself or to retaliate, and, in the end, Janet 
had capitulated, had confessed herself narrow and en- 
tirely in the wrong. To all seeming, the trouble had 
vanished out of sight completely and left no scar behind. 
And yet, locked up in Jack’s innermost being, the hurt 
had remained, and, worse than the hurt,' the little 
scar of self-distrust, of standing back and waiting 
to see how others would receive him. 

Of all his friends, not one had been ^tware of this but 
Day; and she, believing in Jack’s right to reticence, 
had never once spoken of the matter to him. Now that 
at last, however, he had broken silence, she nodded in 
swift comprehension. 

“ I was afraid it did,” she said quietly, after a minute. 
“ Perhaps it was rather bound to hurt, more than we 
any of us realized at the time. Still, it’s all over with. 
Don’t think about it, Jackie, any more than you can 
help. Things like that don’t count so much, anyway, 
with us Americans. We don’t get fussy over trifles. 
And Wade is one of the broadest-minded men I know.” 

“ And Irene? ” 

“ Another,” Day said conclusively. “ Now see here, 
Jack, Irene and I went all over this thing, while the 
fight was going on; and Irene told me then that, if it 
didn’t all blow over and she couldn’t have you both, 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


85 


she should insist on Wade’s asking you to usher, and 
leaving out Janet entirely.” 

“ Honestly? ” Jack was only human, after all, and 
his brown eyes showed his pleasure. 

“ Yes. I never meant to tell you; but, all in all, I 
thought I might as well. Mercifully, the need of such 
radical measures is all in the past. Still, you see you 
can’t well be spared, at this late day.” 

“ No,” Jack assented. “ No; I can’t. I say, Day, 
I had no idea Irene was such a brick about things — 
Not that she would be called a brick from Janet’s 
standpoint, though. However — But when’s the 
day? ” 

“ The Saturday after Thanksgiving; that is, if you 
are able.” 

Jack whistled. 

“ That’s short shrift, Day. I’ll do all I can, though. 
My rib will be all right for that sort of use, granted the 
wedding guests are peaceably inclined; but my ankle 
will be another question. For Rob’s sake, I must get 
past the limping stage.” 

Day nodded, in quick comprehension. 

“ It would be better, if you could,” she said. 

“ I must. However, there’s the journey, too. It’s one 
of those messy little trips, all changes, if I remember 
rightly. That will be worse than a dozen weddings. 
Still, I’ll do my best. What’s to-day? ” 

“ The twenty-ninth.” 

“ Hm! Twenty-four days on my back. That collie 
did great havoc, Day.” 


86 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


“And yet,” she asked thoughtfully; “are you — 
it seems rather unsympathetic to ask; but are you al- 
together sorry? ” 

“ Day,” he answered, with another question; “ do 
you remember just the wag of that old tail? ” Then he 
came back to the subject in hand. “ What is Irene’s 
line-up? ” 

“ Oh, for the wedding? ” Day laughed at his phrase. 
“ Sidney, of course, for maid of honour. That is on 
both their accounts. Then Amy and Janet and I, and 
Irene’s sister, with you and Rob and Paul and a Win- 
throp cousin for the ushers. Coming out, Paul will look 
out for Janet, and you for Amy.” 

“ And you? ” Jack asked hastily. 

“With Rob,” Day answered him. “I’m used to 
catching step, you know. Besides, I’m always happiest 
when I’m with him,” she added gently, as she rose to go. 

And Jack, as he sat staring thoughtfully after her, 
felt it no wonder that Rob Argyle should be the happiest 
of boys. 


CHAPTER SEVEN 


I T was now early in November. 

Lean little books, gold-lettered and bound in red 
or green, had become the order of the day, and every 
girl in all Smith College who owned a pocket, bought 
an odd volume of Shakespeare to fit it. The seniors 
did it that they might decide for which seven or eight 
out of all the parts they should make trial, while the 
girls of the lower classes followed their example, in order 
that they might discover, if they could, what all the 
pother was about. 

All the pother, of course, was about senior dramatics, 
the choice of play and actors for the great event in 
June. Twice in each year, the college is rent in twain 
by hot discussions, once when the play is chosen, and 
again when it is given to its student audience on the 
Thursday night before commencement. Between these 
two epochs, the ardour cools a little, save in the case 
of the score or more of stage-struck students elected 
to fill the roles. For them and, perhaps, too, for their 
intimates, the year is one of mental stress and strain, 
of conflicting jealousies and ambitions, of secretly 
digested downfalls of the pride, of honest endeavours, 
often wholly vain, to conceal elation over some unlooked- 
for elevation into prominence. 


88 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


Moreover, all this strife is well worth the while. Class 
work must be kept up to the highest mark; else, the 
candidate for dramatic honours must give up her part. 
And, side by side with the routine work of the academic 
hour, there goes on a moral training which is of no slight 
help to the girls, once they are thrown into the scramble 
of the life beyond. A girl who can keep her head and 
shut her teeth behind her smiling lips when her chief 
ambition is disappointed, is sure to hold her own when 
the real emergency arises. The other girl, chosen ap- 
parently at random from the inconspicuous mob and 
given a place in the foremost rank of all things, does 
not always find it an easy lesson, the learning to hold to a 
modest unconcern. But the lesson, granted she does 
learn it well, far outweighs the gain she gets out of an 
infinite number of lectures upon social ethics. More- 
over, all the time, this same score or two of girls is study- 
ing hard to get the fullest meaning out of some of the 
noblest lines that man has penned. 

Of course, there is the other side: the politics, the 
inevitable bickering and jealousy, and the carping, petty 
criticism; but, like the outer side of a concave lens, 
it is more glitteringly conspicuous, but vastly smaller. 
Moreover, taken quite alone and by itself, it would count 
for nothing at all. It only gains importance, lying 
against the larger facts beyond. 

However, very few of these arguments came into the 
fluffy heads of the seniors, in those busy days of autumn; 
not, at least, of those who had an active part in prepara- 
tion for the play. They were too busy in more practical 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


89 


directions. The play itself had been decided on in a 
class meeting held the Saturday after Mountain Day. 
There had been hot discussion, caustic argument; even, 
upon the part of one sentimental soul, the quoting of 
opinions recklessly given by outsiders in the course of 
private conversation. It had been Sidney’s first ex- 
perience of presiding over a storm centre which, at 
times, threatened to become cyclonic. Now and then, 
as she confessed later on to Day, she had had a wild desire 
to throw her gavel at the speaker, rather than trust to 
futile tappings on the table which neither stilled the 
tumult nor relieved her feelings in the very least. 

Neither Day nor Amy, as it chanced, had been present 
at the meeting. That afternoon, for the first time, the 
doctors had announced that Jack was ready to receive 
calls, short ones; and Mrs. Pope, soon after luncheon, 
had driven out to the hospital, taking with her the two 
girls. Sidney, on the steps of the Tyler House, had 
looked after them with envious eyes. 

“ Be sure you give him my best love,” she had called 
after the retreating car; “ and tell him that nothing in 
the world but this horrid meeting would have kept me 
from going up there with you. I do think that the 
senior class ought to provide an understudy for its 
president.” ( 

“ Jack will keep, though,” Janet at her elbow made 
practical suggestion; “ and this particular meeting 
won’t.” 

Sidney turned on her a bit impatiently. Loyal as she 
was to the interests of her class, she could not forget 


90 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


that her loyalty to Jack Blanchard was quite as great 
and had been of even longer standing. 

“ Jack came rather near to not keeping, the other 
day,” she reminded Janet. 

“ Yes. And yet, after all, it was a little bit his fault,” 
Janet answered, still with the unsentimental practicality 
which assailed her at times, and always left Sidney's 
blood at boiling point. 

Now, without trusting herself to speak, Sidney turned 
away and started down the steps towards the class 
meeting. 

Afterwards, she freed her mind about it all to Amy and 
Day. Janet could be exasperating now and then, they 
all agreed. The very worst of it all was, in her most ex- 
asperating moods it was wellnigh impossible to pick 
a flaw in her logic. All they could any of them do was to 
shut their tongues between their teeth and go away. 
At her best, Janet was a dear, witty and altogether 
charming. At her worst? It was Amy, who finally 
framed the word : pestiferous. 

The discussion took place, that same evening, over in 
Amy's room. It was safer, all in all. Janet had a trick 
of appearing, unannounced, in Day's and Sidney's 
room; before this, she had walked in upon more than 
one analysis of her latest freak, an analysis which had 
lost itself in apologetic coughs, and ultra cordial greet- 
ings, and spasmodic queries as to the state of the weather 
out of doors. Janet had smiled inscrutably, while 
she had answered. She had been keen enough to know 
the meaning of the confusion of her hostesses. None 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


91 


the less, she had stayed out her allotted time, and come 
again, next day. With friends so old as Sidney Stay re 
and the Argyles, Janet admitted their right to discuss 
and even to criticize. So long as they made no effort 
to prevent her going her ways in peace, they were wel- 
come to talk her over all they chose. Janet Leslie was 
that rare type of girl who accepted it as a necessary fact 
that she would spend a large share of her life upon the 
edge of things. Deep down in the core of her heart lay 
a distinct, unchanging purpose to accomplish a given 
thing in a given way. The carrying out that purpose 
was leaving her time for little else in life, certainly not 
for the inevitable frittering away of energy that would 
result from any effort on her part to worm her way 
into the heart of things. 

The purpose, strange to say, had taken shape during 
a random talk with Rob Argyle. A chance word of his, 
one day, had been the spark which had set fire to a long 
train of events which, Janet believed now, had been 
shaping itself since the beginning of the world. She 
could hear his voice now, see the scene that lay around 
them: the snow-heaped city street that cut athwart 
the battle lines where, just a century and a half before 
this present senior year of hers, two little armies had 
drawn up to fight an age-long enmity of nations to a 
finish. All her young life, Janet had lived close to that 
battleground; the bedtime stories of her earliest choice 
had concerned themselves with that long siege and final 
struggle which, fought within the compass of half a dozen 
city blocks, had modified the fate of half a world. Her 


92 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


father’s father and his uncle had been inkish in their 
tastes. Her own father, practical business man that he 
was, had chosen for his sole diversion the gathering 
up of battle lore. From her tiny childhood, Janet’s 
mind had been filled with the theme; her imagination 
had been kindled with the facts that lay beneath her 
eyes. She had made up solitary little picnics under- 
neath the tree near which Wolfe died; she had gone 
sliding in the path where his forlorn hope had climbed 
the heights; she had even gone to school less than a 
stone’s throw from the place where the gallant Mont- 
calm, shot to his heart, had fallen from his horse, and 
the echo of her steps, passing beneath the Louis Gate 
on her way home to luncheon, had timed themselves 
to the cadence of a woman’s cry, “ My General is 
killed.” 

And then, all of a sudden, Rob had inquired quite 
casually why she didn’t write a history of it all; not 
then, but some day when she was grown up. 

That night, Janet had lain awake and grasped her new- 
born resolution to her heart. Since then, she never once 
had let it go. It had brought her to college; to Smith 
College because, on American soil, she would gain more 
perspective for her final view of the matter. It had 
made her fling herself into her classroom work with an 
intensity unknown to girls who lack a single, absorbing 
purpose. It had dictated her choice of subjects : history, 
politics, logic, and above all, language, with just a dip 
into the chemistry which, she gravely asserted to her 
scoffing friends, had taught her the explosiveness of 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


93 


mixing ill-assorted facts. It brought her Blue Pencil 
and Phi Kappa Psi; it brought her other honours, but 
it brought her singularly few close friends. Janet, 
realizing this fact, admitted its necessity. It took too 
much time to make many new friends. Instead of that, 
then, she would devote her slender leisure to keeping 
the old ones she already had. For that reason, the room 
of Sidney and of Day was one of the very few that she 
frequented. 

Of course, she met their friends there, for Day and 
Sidney, sticking together like a pair of burrs, drew after 
them a good share of the class. Janet was on affable 
terms with many of the circle. She enjoyed them, 
while they were about; but she never went in search of 
them. They liked her; but their liking was modified 
by fear. Janet Leslie allowed her opinions and her 
purposes to be too well known, for her ever to attain 
real popularity. Moreover, she gave these other girls 
distinctly to understand that she liked them as Sidney’s 
friends, or as Day’s; not as her own. 

Within this list came Amy Pope. To be sure, Amy 
had spent the previous summer under Janet’s roof; 
but Janet had caused it to be clearly known that Amy 
was there as Day Argyle’s guest. Earlier in the summer, 
they had gone their separate ways in peace. When the 
strife had come, they had been the leaders of the oppo- 
site sides. True, it had been a lecture, a sound moral 
drubbing, from Amy Pope which had brought the matter 
to an apparent crisis; but Janet’s own conscience had 
forestalled the lecture, and, after outward peace had 


94 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


been established between all the others, there had re- 
mained certain reservations between Janet and Amy. 

Accordingly, in Amy’s room the girls felt free from in- 
terruption, for thither Janet rarely penetrated. In fact, 
she rarely penetrated into the invitation house at all, 
choosing to regard it, not too justly, as a hotbed of pure 
snobbery and totally foreign to the ideals of a demo- 
cratic institution such as Smith, an institution where a 
girl stood down on her own heels and firmly, not mounted 
on a tottering pedestal of ancestral bones and modern 
dollars. Theory, indeed, was Janet’s strongest point. 
Not all her hours of messing, pinafored and smudgy- 
fingered, before the tables in the chemical laboratory had 
ever taught her the inherent danger of jumping to con- 
clusions. This particular conclusion was in no wise 
modified by the fact that the leading member of one of 
the invitation houses, that same year, was a farmer’s 
daughter from a village in the hills, a girl who wore 
cut-over frocks and earned her pennies before she spent 
them. 

The house where Amy lived consisted of six double 
rooms, one of which had been held as a single, to provide 
for an occasional guest. It was a huge room on the south- 
east corner of the house, looking out upon the distant 
meadows and the twin low mountains beyond. There 
Amy Pope had ranged her varied household gods about 
her, the odd jumble of household gods, beautiful and 
frankly comic, that fall to the lot of any girl of exceed- 
ing popularity. There she held sway, and there she 
convened caucuses of all her friends, sometimes all 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


95 


together, sometimes, as now, by twos and threes in turn. 
Just now, with the lights turned low, she and Sidney 
and Day and a heap of parti-coloured cushions lay in an 
inextricable tangle on the bed. 

“ I don’t see why, after all these years, Janet does 
exasperate me so,” Sidney remarked thoughtfully, 
at the ending of her story. 

Amy laughed. 

“ Janet would ruffle the snow-white plumage of an 
angel,” she said. “ It’s her little holier-than-thou air, 
I believe, that does it.” 

“ And, after all,” Day added; “ I sometimes think she 
isn’t half aware of it, herself.” 

“ She is, then. You can see it in her eyes and in 
the way she sticks out her chin,” Sidney contradicted. 
“ I haven’t lived with my own sister Phil, all these 
years, without being able to recognize the symptoms 
in advance. Moreover, when it comes to abusing 
Jack — ” 

“ Janet never has appreciated Jack,” Day murmured 
thoughtfully. 

“ So I observed, this last summer,” Amy remarked. 
u Contrariwise, does he — ” 

“ Yes,” Day interrupted promptly. “ Jack does. 
I think there isn’t one of us, not even Rob, that gives 
Janet more credit for what she really, truly is.” 

“ Well, I am not surprised.” This time, it was Amy 
whose tone was thoughtful. “ In some ways, Jack is a 
good deal broader than the rest of us.” 

Day smiled a little in the dark. It was her growing 


96 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


notion that Jack would have been the first to cast 
Amy’s epithet back upon her outspoken, loyal self. 

Sidney broke the silence. 

“ How does he really seem to you, Day? ” 

“ Splendid,” she replied unhesitatingly. “ Per- 
fectly plucky, only a little worried about Daddy’s 
needing him. He looks a little the worse for wear, 
though. Don’t you remember how it was before? For 
any one so strong, it seemed as if he never, never would 
get over the shock of the accident, to say nothing of 
the rest. Of course, this isn’t nearly as bad. Still, I 
think it will keep him here for a long while yet.” 

“ Do you know,” Amy Pope appeared to be meditat- 
ing aloud; “ I am not sure I should mind so very 
much.” 

“ Jack might, though,” Sidney suggested, when the 
hilarity had died down a little. 

“ If there weren’t any aches attaching to it, of course 
I mean,” Amy defended herself hastily. “ Anyway, 
he was glad to see us this afternoon; and I mean he 
shall be twice glad, before he’s through. At least, we 
can break up the monotony of things a little.” 

Day laughed again, as at some sudden recollec- 
tion. 

“ By way of a parting offering, Amy tied a huge 
black pasteboard jumping- jack to the corner of his 
bed,” she explained to Sidney. “ Jack was charmed 
with it. He promptly named it Axmuthy; and, the last 
we saw of him, he was flapping it as if he’d been a five- 
year baby.” 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


97 


“ Oh, dear! And I was out of it all,” Sidney wailed 
a little enviously. 

“ No matter, dearie; you had the glories of your 
office,” Day consoled her. 

“ Glories of a scrimmage! ” There was disgust in 
Sidney’s accent. “ I never saw such a pack of girls 
in all my life. They didn’t argue; they only squabbled. 
Then Agatha Gilbert stood up — she’s fatter than ever, 
this fall — and mooned away about somebody or other.” 
Sidney’s voice rose to a mincing falsetto. “ ‘ You all 
know who I mean; to some of you she is very dear.’ 
Somebody or other who wants us to do Browning.” 

“ Not a bad idea for Agatha,” Amy made flippant 
comment. “ She’d come in strong on some of his runic 
utterances.” 

“ She would; but she won’t,” Sidney replied, with 
vicious emphasis. “ Her twaddle was the last straw. 
It broke the camel’s back; but the camel died on the 
wrong side of the fence. As soon as she sat down, Helen 
called for the vote, and Midsummer Night’s Dream 
swept everything before it.” 

“ With Agatha as Puck ? ” Day queried irrepress- 
ibly. 

Sidney gave a groan of horror at the idea. 

“ For goodness’ sake, Day, don’t project a thought, 
or whatever they call it, in that direction. It might 
blaze a trail for events to follow.” 

Amy lay back on her heap of pillows, her hands clasped 
on her breast. 

“ Leave it to me,” she advised them smugly. “ I 


98 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


am the present power behind the throne, and I can 
breathe low words into the coachly ear.” 

“ You came most dangerously near not being any 
kind of a power,” Sidney reminded her unkindly. “ It 
took all sorts of fighting to railroad you in.” 

“ No matter,” Amy made tranquil response. “ If 
I hadn’t been chairman, I could have been Titania. 
I have just the build for that.” 

“ Titania wasn’t an Amazon,” Day assured her. 
“ With your dimensions, Amy, the audience would have 
been in agonies of fear lest you might accidentally step 
on one of your attendant fairies and obliterate her com- 
pletely.” 

Amy lifted her head to look down at her long, slim 
foot. 

“ I’d have been very careful,” she said meekly. 
“ However, histrionic triumphs are denied to me. I 
can only toil for the glories of the others.” 

“ And the class,” Day added. 

“ Yes.” The mockery died out of Amy’s tone com- 
pletely. “ Yes, and the class.” 

Sidney, however, took the matter less sentiment- 
ally. 

“Yes, and incidentally get the real honour of the 
whole thing. Amy, I can’t tell you how glad I am you 
have it. There isn’t another girl in all the class who 
would do it one half so well.” 

And Day echoed her words without a spark of envy. 
She shared to the full Sidney’s estimate of Amy; shared, 
too, Sidney’s belief that she herself was cast in too 


SIDNEY : HER SENIOR YEAR 


99 


gentle a mould to meet the ceaseless petty opposition 
and criticism which was bound of necessity to assail 
the chairman of dramatics. 

Amy, listening to their honest praise, was too intent 
upon deserving it to waste a thought upon conventional 
remonstrance. Few honours within the gift of the 
class seemed to her so desirable as did this very chair- 
manship, involving, as it did, the oversight of every 
least detail concerning the commencement play which 
was to be the consummating glory of their college 
course, the greatest memory they would leave behind 
them. In spite of Sidney’s random words, spoken 
weeks beforehand, it never once had occurred to Amy 
that her class would deem her worthy of such honour, 
strong for such responsibilities, impartial for such de- 
cisions as those that lay before her. She had started 
for the hospital, that afternoon, too eager to see her 
invalided friend to bestow more than a passing thought 
upon the meeting. It never once had struck her that, 
for her, the meeting was to be of any especial interest, 
beyond the interest that every loyal senior feels regarding 
the choice for the class play. She had been sitting at 
Jack’s side, chattering gayly, when an orderly had 
brought a message that she was wanted at the tele- 
phone. She had risen with a protesting sigh, and gone 
away. When she came back again, a little later, her 
eyes were shining and her cheeks were flushed; but 
she had vouchsafed no explanation of the message until, 
at her mother’s side, she was driving home. Strange to 
say, even then, there was no elation in her manner, 


100 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


but rather a stiffening of all her moral fibre, to meet the 
new strain laid upon it. 

Both the girls felt this, Day, perhaps, even more than 
Sidney, felt it no less in her silence than in the unaccus- 
tomed quiver in her voice, as she said at last, — 

“ Girls, thank you. I do appreciate it, even if I 
don’t say a lot of gushy things about it. It’s a tre- 
mendous honour, and one I don’t deserve. My only 
fear is that I’m not large enough to fill the place; but 
you can count on it that I shall do the very best I 
can.” She held out her two hands to grip their hands 
in token of her promise. Then she steadied herself 
abruptly, a little abashed by her own unwonted showing 
of emotion. “ Now,” she added briskly; “ do let’s talk 
over things a little, and see where our best material 
is going to lie.” And, just a moment later, the three 
girls were discussing the coming campaign in good 
earnest. 


CHAPTER EIGHT 


W ITH scant regard for convalescent nerves, Day- 
dashed into the sun-room of the hospital. 

“ This,” she proclaimed, as soon as she was in speaking 
distance of the chair where Jack, now looking quite 
his normal self once more, was buried in the Times; 
“ this is what it is to have a railroad father.” 

Jack vouchsafed her no greeting other than a nod. 
The quality of the nod, however, made it quite suffi- 
cient. 

“ What now? ” he inquired, as Day cast herself into 
the nearest chair and pulled a letter out of her coat 
pocket. 

“ Daddy to the rescue, of course,” she answered 
gayly. “ I wrote him about the way the doctor wagged 
his head and looked solemn over your going out to the 
wedding. I judge, from all accounts, that Rob wrote 
him, too. Anyway, he says — Oh, dear me, where is 
it? All this is about our trip home, to-morrow. He 
sends the Aurora up on a night train, and we’re to go 
down at noon,” Day interpolated swiftly. “ Now let 
me see! Here ’tis.” And she read from the letter in her 
hand. 

“ From all accounts, there appears to be a little risk 
about Jack's going West so soon. I interviewed Win- 


102 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


throp, last night, and he seemed to regard Jack as 
an indispensable factor of the function, so we came to 
the conclusion that you’d better, all you youngsters 
and your mother, pile into the Aurora, and make the 
trip in some sort of comfort. It will be the safest 
plan for Jack, and you must see to it that he has all the 
room he needs, and all the time for rest. The others of 
you can pack yourselves in after a fashion, or the boys 
can have a section in another car. Will you tell Miss 
Pope ? I’ve wired Rob to write to young Addison, and 
I’ll arrange at once about the transportation of the car.” 

“ There! ” Day drew a long breath and leaned back 
in her chair, while she folded up her letter. “ Daddy 
is a comfort; and, this time, he has taken a weight off 
my soul. I knew you oughtn’t to think of going, other- 
wise; and I was afraid Irene would balk at the very 
steps of the altar, if you weren’t there with all the rest 
of us.” 

“ Day,” Jack asked her, after a little silence which 
betrayed how far from strong he was, even now; “do 
you realize how good to me your father is?” 

Day looked him in the eye, as she made counter 
question. 

“Why shouldn’t he be, Jack?” she asked fearlessly, 
for all the world was well aware by now that, without 
the constant support of his efficient secretary, no man, 
not even John Argyle himself, could ever meet the 
growing demands laid on him as president of the vast 
railway system stretching from sea to sea. 

Whatever his indebtedness, however, John Argyle 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


103 


realized it to the full. Even Rob Argyle, his only son 
and his idol, was hardly dearer to him than was this 
same secretary, come to him by chance and out of 
nowhere in particular, and grown to be almost his second 
self. It was three or four years now since Jack had 
become an inmate of the Argyle home, a sharer in most 
of the family plans. Accordingly, it seemed to Mr. 
Argyle the most natural thing in the world, when Jack’s 
recent convalescence made dangerous a journey of 
many changes, that he should detail for Jack’s especial 
use his own private car, Aurora. 

" I always did love to do things in state,” Amy Pope 
sighed contentedly, three weeks afterward. 

Jack laughed at the serenity of Amy’s face and voice. 

" This ought to meet your requirements, ma’am,” he 
assured her, as he stooped to pick up the magazine fallen 
at her feet. 

“ It does. It always has been my one regret that my 
family went in for law, instead of railroads,” Amy 
confessed. “ Thank you, no. I decline to read that 
magazine. I can read in any ordinary car. Now I wish 
to meditate upon my especial glories, for they may never 
descend on me again.” 

" After all, it’s not so very different,” Jack said 
thoughtfully. 

"After all, it is, then!” she retorted. "You have 
been pampered for so long that you don’t know about 
the other thing.” 

" I did once,” he reminded her. 

" Of course. But that was a good while ago. You 


104 


SIDNEY : HER SENIOR YEAR 


don't seem to realize that I was never in a private car 
before in all my life.” She surveyed with contented 
eyes the sumptuous simplicity of the interior. “ This 
is no more like a normal Pullman than Macy’s jewelry 
counter is like Tiffany.” Once more she glanced up 
and down the car. “ Even the porter looks different,” 
she remarked. “ He’s a shade blacker and infinitely 
more shiny. I wonder if they have a polish for their 
skins, these more impressive porters.” 

“ We used to take it turn and turn about,” Jack 
assured her gravely. “ When Norman was with me, 
he polished my boots, and I shined up his face.” 

Amy cast a glance of mock terror over her shoulder. 

“ Hush! ” she warned him melodramatically. “ Janet 
might hear.” 

“ I’d best be careful, then,” Jack answered in the 
same exaggerated tone. “ She might be so shocked at 
the discovery that she’d get off at the next station and 
start back home again.” 

“ Do private cars have stations? ” Amy asked dis- 
cursively. “ I thought that they kept going.” 

“ And let the train catch up with them, when they 
came along? ” There was no need now for Jack to 
pretend to any extra mirth. 

“ You shall not laugh at me; it isn’t fair,” she pro- 
tested. “ As I say, this is my first trip in such state as 
this, and I have to get used to it by degrees. But 
really, Jack, there is a certain glory in being of railroad 
extraction; one gets so many privileges, and they all 
are such showy ones. My grandfather and all my 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


105 


uncles are lawyers, good ones, they say; but that 
doesn't give them the right to motor up and down the 
country in a specially-begilded courtroom of their own.” 

“No.” Jack's tone was just a little thoughtful. 
“ And all railroad men don't own a private car. The 
country doesn’t hold so many John Argyles.” 

“ Will Rob be another? ” Amy seemed putting the 
question to herself, and it was she herself who an- 
swered, “ I doubt it.” 

“ Why? ” The question was curt. 

Amy liked its curtness, considering the cause. 

“ Can you fancy Rob in a place like that? ” she de- 
manded. 

“ I can. Under his fun, he’s like a bit of nickeled steel, 
lighter than the old kind, but more unbreakable. Give 
Rob his chance, and he will go to any lengths. What's 
more, when he gets there, he'll make good,” Jack as- 
sured her, in a burst of prophecy whose truth the later 
years fulfilled. 

Amy nodded. 

“ Perhaps. And Day is like him. You don't know, 
Jack Blanchard, what that girl has counted for, in the 
class.” 

“ No. I can imagine." The answer came in two 
deliberate sentences. 

“ You can’t, then. No boy can. You can't know the 
chances that come to her, the chances she sees, when 
most of us girls are as blind to them as bats. We mean 
well; but it is Day who does it. Ask the girls who have 
to grind along, best way they can, that have to make 


106 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


nothing do the work of every single sort of something. 
Day doesn’t spend a tenth of her allowance on herself; 
but that’s the least of what she does. She knows what 
the girls want, and she has a perfect intelligence office 
of a mind, always matching up the needs and the need- 
ings — ” 

“ Meaning bread? ” Rob queried, as, unnoticed by 
either of the others, he sauntered up the car and dropped 
down on the arm of Jack’s chair. 

“ No; Day,” Amy told him frankly. 

He ignored all sentimental phases of the question. 

“ I always had supposed that kneading was an all- 
night job,” he responded. “ Our cook used to make 
no end of a row about it, just when I wanted to get 
sleepy. You’d have said she went at it with a pile 
driver, for the very least. How do you find your nerves 
and busted bones, Jack, now we are really under way? ” 

“ Safe so far.” 

“ That’s good. I only thought, if you’d like to go 
beddy-by, I’d take Amy off your hands. As long as 
that isn’t necessary, what do you say to an endurance 
race down the car, to see which of us can go farthest, 
without limping? We can have Janet for judge, you 
know. She can be counted on to tell us the truth, regard- 
less of our feelings.” Rob settled himself more firmly 
on his chair-arm, with every manifestation of intent 
to stay. 

“ Mahogany is fairly tough; but I know you weigh 
at least two hundred,” Amy warned him practically. 

“ Less eight and a tenth. I am growing peaked from 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


107 


too much study. However, as long as it's Dad’s car, 
not mine, I think I’ll risk this perch a little longer. It 
looks more coy, and I want to impress Day and Sidney 
with the fact that I went off because I was so 
bored." 

“ What bored you? " 

“ Pale pink clothes, and whether the roses ought to 
be carried overhand or under,’’ Rob responded. “ By 
good rights, you ought to be there, to take part in the 
discussion. No; don’t go. I really think that they can 
put it through, themselves." 

“ I haven’t the slightest intention of going," Amy 
reassured him tranquilly. “ I am entertaining Jack." 

“Oh!" Rob’s tone spoke volumes. “ And I thought 
he was looking a little — Never mind. But, Amy, 
would you be willing to tell me what constitutes a shower 
bouquet? Is it made of snowdrops, or does it just 
simply leak on its own account, irrespective of mate- 
rial? " 

Amy laughed. 

“ Sometimes it does leak, when you least expect it," 
she explained. 

“ So do most things, my appetite included." Rob 
pulled out his watch. “ Isn’t it about time that porter 
chap was giving us some dinner? Jack this is your 
party. Suppose you ring him up and see? " 

Amy craned her neck to see the dial of his watch. 

“ Nonsense, Rob! It’s only half past five." 

“What difference? Besides, my inner man is pro- 
claiming that it’s half past time for dinner, and he 


108 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


ought to know. What time do we get to somewhere in 
the morning, Jack? ” 

“ Ask me, do ! ” Amy adjured him. “ I feel so im- 
portant, because I know. We get to Chicago at five- 
thirty, and we get There at ten. I know, because Day 
told me all about it, and she spelled There with a capital, 
just the way I did.” 

“ That’s a beastly slow schedule,” Rob objected. 

“ I know about that, too,” Amy continued explana- 
tion. “It is a slow train. That is partly because 
limiteds do not, as a rule, carry private cars hung on 
behind, and partly because it would be better for our 
interest'ing invalid,” she shot a mocking glance at 
Jack; “ to have the excitement of the start well over 
with by bedtime.” 

“Confound it all, Amy! I’m no invalid,” Jack 
protested. 

But Amy’s answer was conclusive. 

“Oh, yes, you are. Else, I wouldn’t be giving up 
my own good time, for the sake of entertaining you.” 

“ Sacrifice suits you, then,” Jack made elaborate 
reply. “You are doing it extremely well.” 

But already Amy had digressed again. Her own 
contentment rendered her discursive, gossipful. 

“ What is Janet’s present frame of mind? ” she 
queried, in a tone, however, that took all trace of 
malice from her words. 

“ Serenity itself. Behold ! ” Rob nodded sidewise 
towards the further comer of the car where, half buried 
in their great chairs, Paul and Janet were deep in con- 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


109 


versation. “ Paul is a host in himself, when it comes 
to keeping Janet comfy in her mind. He always was.” 

“ She appears to have taken him back into full fa- 
vour, as if nothing had ever gone wrong,” Amy re- 
marked, after a prolonged study of the little group of 
two. 

“ It was largely PauPs doing, I suspect. He has a 
trick of marching up to her and insisting on being 
chums, whether she will or not,” Rob explained. “ He 
shows such cheery unconcern over all her tempers, that 
I suspect she has decided she may as well save up 
her fighting for those of us who mind it more.” 

“ Like Jack? ” Again Amy’s glance, full of merry 
mockery, fell upon Jack. 

To her surprise, he failed to meet her mood. 

“ I do care,” he confessed. “ Care lots.” 

“ What’s the use? ” Rob asked him indolently. 

“ None.” 

“ Then — why? ” 

“ Because I can’t help myself,” Jack confessed, a 
second time. 

“ Really, it isn’t worth the while,” Amy advised him. 
“ Janet’s peskiness is only just skin deep.” 

“ It goes deeper than that with you; eh, Jack? ” 
Rob queried. “ I’m not so sure that I wonder. I had 
a touch of it, one time, myself. However, she has 
taken you back into full favour now; hasn’t she? ” 

“ Ye-es.” Jack hesitated. “ Only I suspect the fa- 
vour, like what Amy terms the peskiness, is just about 
skin deep.” 


no 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


“ I like the word,” Amy defended herself promptly. 
“ It is early Saxon, and it tells its story without mincing 
matters. As for Janet, Jack, I’m not too sorry. Now 
and then there is a sort of comfort in having a comrade 
in misfortune.” 

“ And yet,” Rob made sudden protest; “ with all her 
small — ahem! — peccadillos, I like Janet. She’s smart 
as a steel trap, and, once you learn how to manage her, 
she’s not so very cranky.” 

“ I like her, too,” Jack said meditatively. “ The only 
trouble is that Janet appears not to return the com- 
pliment. She is faultlessly polite, when I’m about; 
but she never makes the slightest effort to come inside 
my radius.” 

“ That is because she doesn’t feel the responsibility 
of entertaining the interesting invalid,” Amy observed, 
with an ostentatious yawn. “ For my part, I like Janet, 
too; but I must confess that I generally prefer to ob- 
serve her actions from the other end of our environment. 
I think, Jack, if you really do not mind too much, I 
shall assume the entertainment of the interesting in- 
valid as my own especial care. From all accounts, there 
is a safety in your radius that is lacking otherwhere.” 

And assume his entertainment Amy did, not only 
throughout the evening, but throughout the trip. More- 
over, she assumed it so well that not only was Jack 
alternately delighted and convulsed by her efforts, 
but their gay duet, wherever it might be, became the 
central point of fun for all the group. Amy Pope was 
something of a genius in her way. Her genius, though, 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


111 


had never been so manifest as now, when she brought 
to bear upon the stalwart young Canadian her whimsi- 
cal determination to treat him as an interesting invalid, 
and to defer to him and make much of him accordingly. 
The whim endured through all the journeys to and from 
the wedding, through all the dainty bustle and confusion 
of the houseparty they found awaiting them. Just once 
it broke, however, broke for a short half hour just after 
the venerable bishop had pronounced Wade Winthrop 
and Irene Jessup man and wife. 

It had been a pretty wedding, all pink and green with 
palms and roses, with the rosy frocks of the bridesmaids 
and with Sidney’s gown of palest, palest green; pretty, 
and not without the little pomp which should accompany 
the crowning moments of a woman’s life. There had 
been a choir hidden away behind the palms, to sing the 
Bridal Chorus, as Irene, beneath her filmy veil, her 
grandmother’s veil and of rare old point, came slowly 
up the aisle. There had been a pair of scarlet-hooded 
rectors, pompous as pouter pigeons, and there had been 
the white-haired bishop waiting to speak the final 
consummating words. Then the slow line went down the 
aisle once more, Wade and Irene Winthrop leading the 
way, their promises fulfilled, and, coming after them, 
the others, their promises as yet to be. And people, 
watching, smiled as they passed by, smiled and demanded 
of each other, “ Which? And when? ” 

Afterwards, their congratulations spoken, Amy and 
Jack drew aside a little from the thickest of the con- 
fusion at the house. It was Amy’s doing, for Jack all 


112 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


along had protested stoutly that he was now as well as 
ever and as strong. Amy had her doubts, however. 
She had felt the little drag of his ankle, as he had fol- 
lowed her into the carriage; and, in the glare of light 
that faced them at the house, she had seen the vertical 
lines between Jack’s level brows. Accordingly, she 
fibbed, fibbed promptly and in a hearty, wholesale 
fashion that filled her companion with amusement. 

“ Jack,” she said; “ I’m abominably tired, after all 
this fuss. We aren’t needed here, with all the others. 
Do take me to some bright little isle of our own, while 
I catch my breath and think up a few lucid things to 
say.” 

For a moment, he stood smiling into the eyes of the 
tall girl beside him; and, as he stood there, Amy was 
conscious of a thrill of pride in her escort. In face and 
bearing, in dignity and ease of manner, Jack seemed, 
even to her critical young eyes, the equal of any man 
there present, the equal even of Rob himself. Jack, 
watching her intently, read something of the satis- 
faction in her eyes; and, yielding to a sudden mood, he 
asked her, — 

“ What is it, Amy? Am I passing muster? ” 

Her answer surprised them both by its earnest swift- 
ness, — 

“ Yes, Jack. You always do.” 

When Paul came dashing in upon them, a half hour 
later, to warn them it was time to cut the bridal cake, 
he discovered them settled in two arm chairs beside 
the table in the deserted library. Between Amy’s 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


113 


round bare arms was outspread a map of the Transvaal, 
with one of her long pink gloves marking an imaginary 
line of march. Beside her, wholly heedless of the 
shoulders of his new coat, Jack sat with his chin resting 
on his interlocked fingers, while, with his brown eyes 
upon her changing face, he told over to her the story 
of those last weeks of the war, weeks when men dropped 
like flies, weeks of weariness and suffering and alarm, 
monotonous days in hospital, and days whose monotony 
was shattered by the “ drives '' planned by the master 
brain of the British Army. Then, that part of the story 
done, he told her of that final day of all, the day when, 
war ended, his medal earned, his passage bought for 
home, the word had come to him that his father, dying 
suddenly, had left his mother penniless. 

It was ail a story that Jack had told but rarely. 
Once, in the despondent mood born of a homesick 
birthday, he had told it all to Sidney. Once, in a long 
day of stormbound inactivity, he had told it over to 
Rob Argyle, merely to rouse Rob from the thought of 
his own alarms. Even Day had never heard it all from 
Jack's own lips. So it was not altogether strange that 
Am y Pope, knowing full well Jack's customary reti- 
cence, swept out of all self-consciousness by listening 
to the tale so simply told, should look up to meet Paul's 
eager hail with eyes that were quite wide and wet. 

Ten minutes later, though, her merry, witty wish 
to Irene from above the wedding cake came as a climax 
to all the gayety which had gone before. 


CHAPTER NINE 


“ CHDNEY,” Day inquired abruptly, one stormy 

^ afternoon; “ what sort of a time up here do you 
think Phil is really and truly having? ” 

A moment earlier, Sidney had been laughing at Day’s 
efforts to reconcile her umbrella handle with the brace 
of bundles she was endeavouring to carry in the same 
hand. Now her face grew grave at the unexpected 
question. 

“ Day, really and truly I don’t know,” she told her 
friend. 

“Doesn’t she tell you things? I thought she did, 
nowadays.” 

“ Some things — sometimes. It isn’t easy, though, to 
get Phil into a confidential mood.” 

“Not exactly.” Day’s answering tone was a good 
deal more dry than she intended. 

Sidney looked up from beneath her own streaming 
umbrella. 

“ Day, you don’t like Phil,” she said flatly. 

And Day made answer no less flatly, — 

“No; I don’t. However, that’s no reason I want 
her to lose all the fun up here.” 

Then a car came along, and Day, despairing for the 





“Sidney looked up from beneath her own streaming umbrella.” 

Page 114 



























r*- 






J 

V 








































































































SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


115 


safety of her bundles, proposed that they should take 
it. Of necessity, then, the conversation dropped. Later, 
that same evening, Day picked it up once more. 

“ Sidney? ” 

“ Yes? ” Sidney’s tone was vague, for her eyes were 
still bent upon the pages of her book. 

“ I want to talk. Put up your work and pay atten- 
tion.” 

“ What do you want to talk about? ” 

“ Phil.” 

Sidney tossed her book aside. 

“ What’s the use? ” she asked a little wearily. “ Isn’t 
it enough for me to worry? ” 

Day frowned; not at Sidney, however, but at the 
subject. 

“ Worry never does any good,” she said. 

“ No; perhaps not. However, if you were responsible 
for Phil — ” 

“ You aren’t,” Day interposed with some haste. 

“ Yes, I am, after a fashion. One always is a little 
bit responsible for the people that one loves.” 

Day’s next question was as unorthodox as it was 
unexpected. 

“ Sidney, for an honest fact, do you really love Phil, 
love her as — as I do Rob? ” 

The question proved a poser. Without its final clause, 
Sidney would have given it an unqualified assent. Day’s 
love for Rob, though, as she well knew, far overpassed 
the limits usually set for sisterly affection. Sidney 
pondered. Then, — 


116 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


“ I do love Phil, Day, love her very much. I could 
love her even better, though, if she’d let me.” 

The answer sufficed. Sidney’s tone left no doubt of 
its sincerity; and, long since, the two girls had dis- 
missed from their talks together all conventional ex- 
pressions of opinion that they did not feel. Day at- 
tacked a new corner of the subject. 

“ Has it ever occurred to you that Phil is missing 
Wade more than she cares to have us know? ” 

“ I am sure she is.” Sidney’s answer came promptly. 
“ Wade has been lovely to her, all through his engage- 
ment; but of course it made a difference. It was 
bound to. And Phil does love dearly to be first.” 

“ Don’t we all? ” Day made thoughtful query. 

“ Yes, only some of us have more ways of working 
towards it. Wade was the centre of Phil’s solar system, 
and it was hard for the child, when Irene came up on 
the — the horizon.” 

“ You might have said the zenith,” Day suggested, 
with sudden flippancy. “ It wouldn’t have stretched 
the truth at all, and it would have been a good deal 
less hackneyed. But, to return to our little lambs, 
I meant to imply that it was Wade’s influence, not his 
self, that Phil was missing.” 

“ She misses both,” Sidney assented, her thoughtful 
eyes on the rug at her feet. 

“ Naturally. You can’t well split them, I suppose.” 
Day appeared to be thinking aloud. “ And yet, after 
all, you can. Being with Wade kept her happy; but, 
even when he wasn’t around, things he had said to 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


117 


her did seem to make her gentler, a little bit less — 
crabbed.” 

Sidney sighed. 

“ Day, I truly do try,” she burst out at length. “ I 
don’t have that child off my mind for one single, soli- 
tary minute.” 

“ It’s a shame,” Day murmured, in a sympathetic 
aside addressed to no one in particular. 

“ It’s a shame to me,” Sidney answered, with some 
spirit. “ Phil’s own older sister ought to have as much 
influence over her as a man cousin ; but I can’t seem to 
find out how to get it, in the first place. In her dumb 
way, I think she likes me. Once in a while, a very great 
while, she even talks to me a little. I try to make 
the most of it; but I can’t seem to get her to do it very 
often.” 

“ Does she ever do it of her own accord? ” Day per- 
sisted, as one who was seeking foundation for scientific 
investigation, to be carried on at her future leisure. 

“ Once or twice she has.” 

“ And? ” Day held her question suspended in mid- 
air. 

In spite of her really serious interest in their discussion, 
Sidney laughed outright. 

“ And it has astonished me so that I’ve stood and 
stared at her, with my mouth wide open, and never 
said a word.” 

Day’s answering laugh was infectious in its mirth. 

“No wonder she hasn’t been moved to repeat the 
experiment too often, Sidney!” 


118 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


“ I know it,” Sidney made humble confession. “ I 
do make such fearful blunders always, when it’s a case 
of Phyllis, Day. I can’t ever seem to understand her, 
no matter how I try.” 

Day again addressed the opposite wall. 

“ No especial wonder,” she made comment. 

“ Has it ever struck you,” Sidney asked, after a med- 
itative pause; “ that Phil never gets on with girls? ” 

“ Some girls, yes. It has struck me often and very 
hard,” Day assented, with a chuckle. 

But Sidney ignored the chuckle. 

“ I don’t mean any especial girl; but just girls as a 
class. Boys — men, rather — she gets on better 
with.” 

“ I love your rhetoric,” Day interpolated. 

“ Never mind the rhetoric. I’m after the fact. 
Phil never showed herself out to me one half as much as 
she has done to Wade. Down in her secret heart, she 
adores Jack, though she’d rather die a dozen deaths 
than let him know it. Moreover, from all accounts, 
she and Paul were chums at sight.” 

“ Funny; wasn’t it? I couldn’t exactly understand 
that combination. But Phil has always fought with 
Rob.” 

“ Because he would persist in taking her as a joke, 
and she knew it,” Sidney answered. “ Phil’s one great 
ambition in life is to be taken very much in earnest.” 

“ Don’t you suppose she ever sees the funny side of 
herself? ” Day queried. 

“ Never.” 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


119 


Day rumpled her hair against the chairback until it 
rose, a skewy aureole, about her happy face. 

“ What a shame for her to miss so much! ” she ob- 
served pityingly. “ If she were only some other person, 
she’d revel in her own eccentricities. Don’t you think 
she even gets the fun of taking in the combination 
of herself and the frilly Marguerite Veronica? ” 

“ Never,” Sidney iterated. 

“ Too bad! A sense of humour is such a solace. But 
really, Sidney,” Day sat up and attacked the question 
with fresh zeal; “ all those last months before we came 
to college, after Jack was burned, Phil seemed like a 
different creature. She looked different, too. She 
seemed to have a notion that some things were less 
unbecoming than some others; she even laughed a 
little once in a while, and she didn’t consider it at 
all a disgrace to let Jack know she cared about 
him and had been a little anxious about his getting 
well.” 

“ I know. I remember.” Sidney spoke briefly. 

“ And I thought it was going to last.” 

“ So did I.” 

“ And it hasn’t.” 

“ No.” 

“ Then,” Day spoke with a bravery which, at heart, 
she was far from feeling; “ then we must go to work to 
get it back again.” 

“ How? ” 

“ I don’t know,” Day confessed frankly. “ Of course, 
it’s something that we know it’s there, shut up inside 


120 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


her. We have so much to build upon. How to get it 
out again is a different matter.” 

“ So I’ve discovered,” Sidney burst out, and now there 
was a ring of desperation in her tone. “ Phil's end and 
aim in life is to appear exactly the one thing that she 
isn’t. At heart, she’s not a termagant at all. She’s 
sensitive and easily hurt, and she’d fight for her friends 
till — till she dropped, fighting.” 

“ And when they picked her up, she’d turn on them 
and fight them, too,” Day added. “ Sidney, there’s 
no denying it that Phil is a problem.” 

Then silence fell upon the room. 

Day broke the silence. 

“ But what I’m grudging,” she said slowly; “ is her 
losing all the good she might get out of college.” 

• “ The loss is her own, though,” Sidney said soberly. 

“ Not altogether. Some of it comes back on Wade 
and your father. They sent her here. They didn’t do 
it haphazard, either; they had a definite notion of 
what it ought to do for Phil; and they are going to be 
wofully disappointed, when it doesn’t do it.” Day sat 
leaning forward, her chin on her fists. “ I grudge it, 
Sidney; it all seems such a lot of wasted energy,” she 
repeated. 

“ I know. But what can I do? ” 

Day rose abruptly, crossed the room to seat herself 
on the arm of Sidney’s chair. 

“ It isn’t you, Sidney, and I’m a selfish beast to throw 
my worry over on you,” she said remorsefully, as she 
flung her arm across her friend’s shoulders, then drew 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


121 


it tight. “ In fact, I rather think I have been a little 
selfish, all along. I’ve washed my hands of Phil entirely, 
and left you to manage her as best you could. There's 
no use denying that the child will have to be managed. 
She’s no fit subject for self-government; she’s as crazy 
as a junior voting for caps and gowns, bent on self- 
destruction, and consequent endless repinings after it’s 
too late. Really, did you know those juniors went 
through the annual farce, to-day? When do you sup- 
pose the idea will ever trickle backwards down the 
classes that, by the time we’re seniors, we loathe the 
very mention of a cap and gown? But about Phyllis: 
Sidney, I think I’ve been a conscienceless pig, the way 
I’ve left her to go her ways alone.” 

“ But she isn’t your sister,” Sidney reminded her. 

Day’s reply came without hesitation. 

“No; but she’s yours, and you are my one best girl 
friend, and your worries ought, by good rights, to be 
mine. Sidney Stayre, without you — ” She checked 
herself, save for the tightening of her arm on Sidney’s 
shoulders, and, for a little while, there was silence. 
When Day spoke again, her voice was lower. “ And, 
just because college has done so much for me, Sidney, 
now that I’m getting ready to leave it all behind and 
go away, the least thing I can do will be to pass it on 
to some other girl who needs it just as I have done, and 
there isn’t another girl I know who needs it more than 
Phil does.” 

" Yes,” Sidney assented. “ If only — ” 

But Day interrupted. 


122 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


“ She will, Sidney; that is, if I do my part. Else, 
what’s the use of us girls whose lives are simply crammed 
with happiness? ” 

A day or two afterwards, Day said some of this to 
Amy Pope. Amy, however, frankly funked the situa- 
tion. 

“ It is a noble thought, Day, and it does you proud. 
I admire your theories and your reformatory zeal; 
but I can’t take up my hoe and go to digging up the 
moral weeds in Phil. I’ve troubles enough on my 
own account just now.” 

“ What now? ” 

“ Agatha Gilbert!” Amy muttered darkly. “She’s 
always nowing about something or other.” 

Day laughed unfeelingly. 

“ It’s your turn, Amy. I toiled over her, all freshman 
year. She had the greatest inabilities of anybody in the 
class, and she poked her feet up the steps of every pos- 
sible position, from basket ball to S. C. A. C. W., and 
the class treasury.” 

“ She’d have been safe there; she’s too slow to do any 
embezzling,” Amy grumbled. “ A treasurer who counts 
on her fingers is likely to be kept too busy to get into 
trouble on her own behalf. I wish I’d known her aspira- 
tions before this year’s elections. I would have guaran- 
teed to keep her out of further mischief.” 

“ You poor old dear! What is it now? ” Day asked 
soothingly, for in truth Amy did look distinctly worried. 

The worry came out in a positive gulp of woe. 

“ She’s going to try for Puck! ” 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


123 


“ For Puck! ” 

“ Yes, for Puck. And she has the architecture of a 
feather bolster.” 

“ What if she does? She’ll never make it.” 

“ I know that,” Amy ‘retorted grimly. “ But think 
of the disgrace to all the class that none of us have been 
able to suppress her! ” 

Late that same afternoon, when Sidney and Day were 
just preparing to dress for dinner, Janet burst in upon 
them with confirmation of the tidings. 

“ Girls! Girls! Girrrlls!” she demanded breath- 
lessly. “ Have you heard the last sensation at the 
Hatfield House? ” 

Sidney shook her head. For the moment, certain 
facts of class politics had downed even the great ques- 
tions of dramatics. 

" You haven’t heard? A great president you are! ” 
Janet scoffed. “ And this is news, too, great, fat 
news. Agatha Gilbert — ” 

“ Is trying for Puck.” Day completed Janet’s sen- 
tence for her. 

Janet’s face fell. 

“ Then you had heard,” she said a little bit reproach- 
fully. 

“ Amy told us, this morning.” 

“ What did Amy say? ” Janet demanded. 

“ She didn’t. She was speechless with disgust.” 

“Disgust!” Janet, in her excitement, had been 
roaming up and down the room; but now she paused to 
face Day, a world of hilarity in her dark eyes. “I 


124 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


think it is the best fun I ever heard or saw. Agatha 
Gilbert is fat, Day, soft fat, and slower than a tired-out 
turtle. She looks like one, too.” Janet gave a nervous 
little giggle. It was plain that the spirit of dramatics 
had fallen upon her soul. 

Day read the mood aright. 

“ You’ve just been over, having trials, your own self,” 
she challenged her friend. 

Janet nodded. 

“ Yes. How did you know? ” 

“ I saw you, the night after you did Madame Cham- 
plain, last summer; I recognize the symptoms. More- 
over, I suspect that they applauded. Did they? ” 

“ A little.” 

“ Good child! Make them applaud some more. 
What parts are you trying? ” 

“ Just Hippolyta , and Hermia, and Helena ,” Janet 
made comprehensive answer. 

Sidney, brush in hand, spun around from the mirror. 

“ Good gracious, child! Do you mean to corner it 
all, yourself? ” she demanded. 

“ No; it’s only just as well to have some extra bow- 
strings in your pocket,” Janet answered. “ The girls 
all say so. Besides, these are the only ones that are in 
my line. I’m too little to be a man, and too — too 
down on my heels to be a tripping fairy. They’re 
futile, anyway.” 

“ Take care! ” Day warned her. “ I expect to be a 
fairy.” 

“ Titania , then,” Janet answered. 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


125 


“ Me? No; I’m too big, and I can’t act enough. I 
only aim to be just a plain, garden variety of fairy. I 
want to be in the thing,” Day told her frankly; “ and 
I ought to get as much as that out of my dancing and 
my having been freshman president.” 

“ You ought to get a whole lot more,” Janet mutinied. 

“I ought to; but I sha’n’t. Moreover, I think I 
won’t waste my time in trying. It will be all I can do 
to support Sidney and Amy in their hours of greatness,” 
Day said, with a good-natured finality which was in- 
tended once for all to bury Janet’s suspicions of her own 
desire for stage success. 

“ You really don’t want Titania ? I think you’d 
stand a chance for it,” Janet urged her. “ Even if 
you are a little bit too tall, you’re so light on your feet 
that no one would ever think about anything else.” 

Day shook her head. 

“No Titania for me. I’d be worse than Agatha as 
Puck . ” 

Janet gasped and gurgled, as once more her mirth 
assailed her. 

“You couldn’t be! No boards would hold you. 
Agatha herself needs especial planking. Girls, you 
must see her doing it! ” 

“ Have you? ” 

“ Yes, just this afternoon.” 

“ When? How? ” Sidney flung down her brush and 
joined Day in the window-seat. 

“ Marjorie Glenn is in Fifteen Washburn, you know, 
and she asked me over. She and her roommate have been 


126 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


having theatre parties for a week, it seems. They 
get back in the room, and watch Agatha with opera 
glasses. The windows are just opposite, and one gets 
a splendid view. Oh, but it is funny, funny! This is 
the way she does it. Look! ” And Janet darted across 
the room, snatched up a handful of pillows, deftly 
lashed them to her person by means of the long 
crape scarf that lay upon Day’s bed, and then came 
solemnly striding forward towards an imaginary row 
of footlights. Just within the imaginary row, she 
halted, lifted herself upon one toe and then the other, 
cut a pigeon-wing, deliberate and elephantine, and 
then made sonorous proclamation, 

“The king doth keep his revels here to-night; 

Take heed the queen come not within his sight, 

For Oberon is passing fell and wrath/’ 

“ 1 should think he might be,” Day said, as she wiped 
her eyes. “ Janet, your place is on the vaudeville stage, 
doing impersonations.” 

“ Of the great? ” Janet queried composedly. “ Aga- 
tha Gilbert should come under that head. She weighs 
as much as Jack Blanchard, any day.” Then, swiftly 
as she had donned them, she tossed aside the scarf 
and pillows and went leaping down the floor, laughing 
and capering like the maddest, merriest Puck conceiv- 
able, flung a handspring forward, sidewise, and came 
up to face them with a little elfish crow of laughter. 
An instant later, she was swaying slightly, lightly as a 
bit of thistle down, in time to the lilt of Puck's gay lines. 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


127 


“ Up and down, up and down, 

I will lead them up and down: 

I am fear’d in field and town; 

Goblin, lead them up and down.” 

Dancing lightly backwards to the door, she flung 
another handspring, gave another little crow of laughter, 
and then, before either of her audience could rally to 
their senses and applaud, she had turned demurely 
and walked off out of the room. 

A pause, utter, eloquent, followed on the heels of her 
departure. Then Day turned to Sidney. 

“ You're going to Amy's room with me, directly after 
supper," she ordained. 

“ Why Amy? " 

“ To tell her that she must insist upon it," Day's 
voice was excited, eager, earnest; “ must insist upon it 
without fail that Janet Leslie tries for Puck” 

“ There's no question of her getting it, if she does try," 
Sidney assented. 

Without wasting more time in idle reckoning up 
the chances, both girls fell to work at their belated toilets. 
In the midst of hooking up her belt, though, Day lifted 
up her voice. 

“ Hippolyta ! Bah! " she said. 

And, meanwhile, Janet Leslie had gone her way, 
without the slightest notion of the enthusiasm that 
she had created. 


CHAPTER TEN 


“/~WE in!” 

vJ Phyllis spoke like an aggrieved Amazon. To 
be sure, there was some reason for her dismal sternness. 
She had made an ignominious failure of her history 
recitation, that morning, a failure bom of the self- 
consciousness evoked by her having overheard a whisper 
distinctly not meant for her ear. There had been ice- 
cream for dinner, too; and Phyllis detested ice-cream 
and disdained noon dinners. Moreover, as a last, 
worst ill, Marguerite Veronica, in a swishy silk petti- 
coat, had undertaken to change the hanging of all the 
pictures in the room, just at the hour when Phyllis 
had settled to a long-delayed letter to her mother. 
And moreover again, it was raining furiously outside, 
and fast converting the ice on Paradise into an unseemly 
lake of slush, and skating was the one outdoor sport 
which Phyllis deemed worthy of her size and dignity. 
Strange to say, she skated extremely well. 

“Come — in!” The accent of her repetition be- 
trayed the fact that Phyllis was fast becoming exasper- 
ated by the delayed obedience to her summons. 

Weeks before this time, the entire household had 
learned that Phyllis Stayre, exasperated, was a force 
to be reckoned with. Accordingly, it was no wonder 


SIDNEY : HER SENIOR YEAR 


129 


that the maid’s face, appearing in the crack of the open- 
ing door, showed that she felt deprecating. 

“ There’s a caller for you downstairs, Miss Stayre,” 
she said. 

“ What! ” Phyllis received the information incredu- 
lously, much as if a caller were a new and unpleasant 
sort of bug. 

“ A caller. A young man.” The maid’s voice sud- 
denly lost its deprecating accent, and Marguerite Ve- 
ronica, pausing to look on, would have sworn that the 
girl had barely suppressed a titter of sheer mirth. 

“A young ma-a-en!” Phyllis protracted the word 
disdainfully. Then she made abrupt question. “ What 
did he say his name was? ” 

This time, the titter was very much in evidence, as 
the maid responded, — 

“He didn’t say.” 

Phyllis shut her jaw. Then she opened it, just long 
enough to query, — 

“ Why didn’t you ask him? ” 

“ I did,” the maid retorted hotly. “ Mrs. Leslie 
always has us ask the names, to keep out umbrella 
menders and those Syrian peddlers in a suitcase.” 

Phyllis disregarded this bit of collateral information. 

“ And what did he tell you? ” she demanded, with a 
grim sort of majesty. 

“ He told me,” the maid was obviously quoting, as she 
answered; “that you’d be so jolly well pleased to see 
him that we’d best keep it up a secret, till you came.” 

“ Fudge! ” Phyllis stuck her pen up, rampant, in her 


130 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


tight knob of hair. “ Very well,” she added curtly. 
“ I’ll go down and see him for myself.” 

Marguerite Veronica, petticoated and dusty, put 
in a brief remonstrance. 

“ Just as you are, Phyllis? ” she questioned. 

“ Certainly. How else? ” Phyllis’s tone was crush- 
ing in its dignity. Then, without another word, she 
turned and left the room. 

Down in the drawing-room below, she found her guest 
awaiting her. Contrary to his prediction of her experi- 
encing any jolly good amount of pleasure at the sight of 
him, she found herself face to face with a total stranger. 
He was a lean little man who might have been of any 
age from sixteen to sixty, a man with a loosely sagging 
jaw, a weazen, wrinkled face and a single eyeglass whence 
a wide black ribbon dangled to lose itself somewhere 
inside his tall, stiff collar. When Phyllis first came in 
sight of him, the glass was focussed upon the middle of 
the ceiling, and its owner seemed to be lost in profound 
meditation. At the sound of her step upon the thresh- 
old, he sprang up with every appearance of alert and 
pleased enthusiasm. The pleased enthusiasm speedily 
left his face, however, and he took a hurried step back- 
ward and behind his chair, as Phyllis, her hand ex- 
tended like some weapon cleaving the air before her, 
and her face a mask of impassive hostility, bore down 
upon him. 

“ How do you do? ” she demanded very sternly. 

The sternness caused the guest’s muscles to relax, 
and his glass fell with a sounding click. As if to claim 


SIDNEY : HER SENIOR YEAR 


131 


its impersonal protection, he rested one hand upon the 
back of the chair, turning it slightly, so that its cush- 
ioned seat should serve to form a barrier between him- 
self and Phyllis. 

“ Thank you, I’m really quite well, you know,” he 
answered. “ But, I say, there must be some mistake.” 

Phyllis eyed him coldly. 

“ I should say there was,” she made reply. “ I was 
told you had asked for me.” 

“ Oh, no; I wouldn’t do such a thing as that,” the 
guest responded, with a fervour whose signification 
happily was lost upon Phyllis. “ I asked for Miss 
Stayre, you know.” 

“ I am Miss Stayre,” Phyllis asserted, with majestic 
brevity. 

Hurriedly the stranger screwed his glass into his eye 
and took a fresh look at Phyllis. Then, with an odd little 
air of finality, he dropped the glass and left it swaying 
on its silken sash. 

“ Oh, no; you aren’t,” he assured her gently. “ You 
can’t be. There must be some mistake.” 

“ But I am,” Phyllis told him testily, for she was in 
no mood to have her own identity contradicted in such 
a summary fashion as all this. 

Again the stranger sought his glass. 

“ But you can’t be it, you know,” he argued. “ At 
least,” he continued, in apparent contradiction of the 
testimony of his senses; “ you may be another one, got 
in from outside; but you can’t possibly be the Miss 
Stayre in this house.” 


132 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


“ But I am,” Phyllis persisted, even in the face of his 
denials. 

The caller shook his head, dislodging, as he did so, a 
few locks of spiky hair that tumbled forward on his 
brow, giving his elderly face the look of an unkempt 
schoolboy just aroused from a long night’s sleep. 

“ You can’t,” he iterated, and his voice now threat- 
ened to become a little shrill. “ You can’t be that one, 
don’t you see, because she’s quite a different sort of 
chap. That is,” he added, as a sudden doubt assailed 
him; “ she used to be, you know, three years ago. Of 
course, she may be you, after all. They say that col- 
lege life is bound to be a little trying to a chap’s good 
looks.” 

“Oh!” Light dawned on Phyllis. “ You want to 
see my sister, I suppose.” 

Dubiously, very, very dubiously the caller scanned 
his present hostess from head to heel. 

“ May be,” he made guarded answer. “ It’s not too 
easy to be quite sure, you know, and I’d hate to make 
another mistake.” He pulled out his handkerchief, 
unfolded it and passed it across his brow. “ Really,” 
he went on, in explanation of this last manoeuvre; “ a 
mistake of this kind does get a man to feeling very 
fussed and warm.” 

“ I should think it might,” Phyllis told him, and her 
tone held its own rebuke. 

The caller looked up from beneath the folds of hand- 
kerchief. 

“You feel it, too? ” he queried sympathetically. 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


133 


“ Not at all. "Why should I? ” Phyllis answered so 
sternly that he promptly folded up his handkerchief 
and put it in his pocket, stuck his glass in his eye and 
came to respectful attention. 

Phyllis determined to leave to him the breaking of the 
silence; and he appeared to lack the needful courage, 
so the ensuing pause was long. At length, however, 
he did break it. 

“ I say,” he queried meekly; “ what do you think 
we’d best do about it next? ” 

Phyllis advised him, frankly, briefly. Ultimately 
and without making known his own identity, the guest 
departed in search of Sidney and the Tyler House. 
With no especial intent of malice, Phyllis directed him 
by way of the back campus, where he promptly pro- 
ceeded to lose himself in the rocky mazes of the botanical 
garden. Later, much later, an obliging sophomore 
discovered him, wandering around and around the 
little frog pond, and murmuring vague explanations 
of his presence at the denizens therein. The sophomore 
was pitying and motherly. She diverted his explana- 
tions to herself, and escorted him upon his way until 
the back steps of the Tyler House were close at hand. 
Then, pointing out the path around the house, she 
excused herself and dashed off to meet a belated en- 
gagement. At the turn of the walk, however, she 
looked back. She was just in season to behold the 
stranger, his umbrella still spread above his head, seeking 
admission at the kitchen portal. 

Meanwhile, Phyllis, repressing as frivolous the femi- 


134 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


nine desire to telephone to Sidney and acquaint her with 
the impending visitation, had returned to her aban- 
doned letter, without vouchsafing a word of explanation 
to the curious Marguerite Veronica. And Marguerite 
Veronica had arrayed herself in her most becoming 
frills, on the slim chance of being bidden to the drawing- 
room to help in entertaining her roommate’s unexpected 
guest. However, she indulged in neither question nor 
recrimination. Three weeks in the same room with 
Phyllis Stayre had taught lessons in wiliness to Mar- 
guerite Veronica, lessons in tact which were of far 
greater value than any instruction that she ever had 
dragged out of lexicon or treatise on higher algebra. 

This second time, the stranger guest evidently had 
made up his mind to take no chances. Furling his 
dripping umbrella, he advanced upon the kitchenful 
of maids, card in one hand, tip in the other. 

“ You take this up to her, some of you,” he ordered. 
“ Then, if she’s the one I want to see, I’ll give you this.” 
His alternately extended hands explained his pronouns. 

Quite naturally the maids hesitated. As a rule, guests 
of the girls did not appear by way of the back door. 
Then the yellow gleam of the coin in the guest’s hand 
removed their scruples, and one of them stepped for- 
ward to lead the way into the parlour. 

The stranger stepped back a pace or two, and lifted 
a forefinger in admonition. 

“ Now remember,” he said as sternly as the slippery 
umbrella under his right arm would allow him; “ unless 
you bring down the chap I want, you won’t get any- 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


135 


thing out of me, so I warn you to be very careful about 
the place where you go to look for her.” 

There was a perceptible interval before the maid came 
back again, a longer interval before Sidney, flushed and 
smiling, came into the room. 

“ Lord Axmuthy! Where did you come from? ” she 
exclaimed. 

The guest rose to meet her. 

“ Oh! This time, it’s you,” he remarked, by way of 
greeting. 

Sidney laughed. A stranger might have said that her 
laugh came easily, all things considered. 

“ Whom did you expect? ” she asked him. 

“ I expected you,” Axmuthy assured her fervently. 
“ That didn’t seem to make any difference, though, for 
they sent me down another chap.” 

“ Another? ” 

“ Yes.” Lord Axmuthy seated himself, clasped his 
gloved hands upon the crook of his umbrella and turned 
to gaze up at Sidney, who still stood beside him. 

“ When was that? ” 

“Just now.” 

“Here?” 

“ Oh, no.” 

“ Where was it, then? ” 

“ Up at the other house, the house where I left you. 
How could I be expected to know that you had moved? ” 
The accent was full of accusation. 

“ Oh, at the Leslie house? I was there only for fresh- 
man year. Did you see Mrs. Leslie? ” 


136 


SIDNEY : HER SENIOR YEAR 


“ Oh, no. I didn’t ask for her. I only wanted to 
see you, you know.” 

“ Whom did you see? ” 

For some seconds, Lord Axmuthy sat staring into 
space, as if cogitating the answer he should make. 
Then, without removing his gaze from distant spaces, 
he gently shook his head. 

“ Some sort of a she-dragon,” he responded. “ Really, 
you know, it isn’t necessary to be quite so stern.” 

A sudden fear assailed Sidney. 

“ Was it my sister Phyllis? ” she inquired. 

Lord Axmuthy turned his eyes upon her, during an- 
other interval of cogitation. 

“No; I don’t think it could have been,” he said 
hurriedly at last. “ She said it was. In fact, she quite 
insisted on it; but I’m sure she must have been mis- 
taken. You couldn’t well have had a sister of that kind, 
so terribly determined in her manner and with a stick- 
thing prodded into her back hair. Besides,” he added, 
in a final lucid outburst; “ if she had been your sister, 
don’t you know, she’d have been quite sure that she 
wasn’t you.” 

Sidney turned hastily and went to pick out her own 
favourite chair. The choice occupied some minutes, 
and Lord Axmuthy employed the minutes in whispering 
over the upshot of his meditations. Once he interrupted 
himself long enough to query, — 

“ I say, can’t I help you find a chair? ” 

Then, without stirring from his place, he fell back 
into his reverie. 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


137 


Seated, Sidney made a determined effort to change 
the subject of the conversation. All in all, she judged 
it better. 

“ Where did you drop down from, Lord Axmuthy? ” 
she inquired. 

“ I came out in a steamer, you know,” he explained. 
“ From Boston, I took the cars.” 

“ You came by way of Boston, then? ” 

“ Oh, no. I landed at New York. I only thought you 
thought I might have come out in an aeroplane,” Lord 
Axmuthy made further explanation. 

“ An aeroplane? ” 

“ Yes. You said drop down , you know.” 

Sidney repressed a sigh. In spite of all her efforts, 
the conversation did not appear to be running smoothly. 
She was glad to see Lord Axmuthy, too. She had known 
him rather well, three years before; she had found out 
that his heart was decidedly superior to his intelligence. 
Moreover, was he not engaged to be married to her cousin, 
Judith Addison, and so about to become one of her own 
kin? And was not her old Canadian chum, Ronald 
Leslie, the secretary of his British lordship, and wholly 
loyal to the futile little man? 

“ When did you land? ” she asked. 

“ Last week. I quite forget the day,” Lord Axmuthy 
answered languidly; “ except that it wasn't on a Friday. 
I never mean to do anything at all on a Friday.” 

“ But this is Friday,” Sidney reminded him, with a 
smile. 

“ Oh, is it? ” Axmuthy seemed involved in silent 


138 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


computations, if one might judge by the motions of his 
lips and fingers. “ Oh, so it is,” he added, with a dis- 
couraged drop in his voice. “ I suppose that accounts 
for it all, you know.” 

“ Very likely,” Sidney responded as gravely as she 
could. “ Did Ronald come over with you? ” 

“ Over? ” 

“ From England?” 

“ Out, you mean,” Lord Axmuthy corrected gently. 
“Yes. He came out with me. Poor chap! He’s in 
now, though.” 

“ In? ” 

“ Yes. In the house, over at Boston. He’s got a 
cold.” 

“ I am sorry. I suppose he will be here soon.” 

“ Oh, yes,” Lord Axmuthy replied, with an accurate 
attention to detail. “ He’ll come after me out here, as 
soon as he gets through sneezing. That’s the reason 
I didn’t ask for Mrs. Leslie.” 

Sidney felt that her own brain was reeling, with its 
efforts to keep up with the mental gymnastics of Lord 
Axmuthy. 

“ What is? ” she asked him. 

“ That I was afraid she’d be alarmed. Colds are very 
prevalent, just now. In fact, I feel as if I had one com- 
ing. I was so very warm, over at the other place — 
really, that young woman was most unpleasantly de- 
termined — and then I found it damp about the frog 
pond.” 

“ The frog — pond? ” 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


139 


“ Yes. That is what the girl called it. She found me 
there, you know, and brought me out ,” Lord Axmuthy 
made lucid explanation. “ I really hope I haven’t got 
a cold,” he added anxiously. 

Sidney gripped her fast-vanishing gravity and held 
on to it as firmly as she could. 

“ I hope not, I am sure,” she said courteously. “ Are 
you planning to stay long in America, this time? ” 

Lord Axmuthy’s reply was noncommittal. 

“ That depends,” he said. 

Sidney took a fresh line of suggestion. 

“ How did you leave Judith? ” she asked him. 

“ Very seedy.” 

“ What is the matter with her? Another cold? ” 
Sidney spoke lightly, quite unprepared for the sombre- 
ness of ALxmuthy’s next words. 

“ Oh, no. I fancy it’s the weeping.” 

“ The weeping? ” Sidney’s voice held a whole row 
of interrogation points. 

“ Yes. One always weeps, you know, when one’s 
engagement is broken. At least,” he corrected himself 
hastily; “ the girl does.” 

“ But — but is her engagement broken? ” 

“ Oh, rather.” 

“ But why? What for? ” 

“ Oh,” Lord Axmuthy spoke now with cheery non- 
chalance; “ we couldn’t seem to hit it off. But, I say,” 
his voice grew a bit more earnest on the words; “is 
there any reason that we two chaps can’t keep on being 
cousins? ” 


140 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


Sidney rose to her feet in haste. 

“ How stupid I am, Lord Axmuthy! ” she exclaimed. 
“ Of course, you want to see Miss Argyle, too.” 

Lord Axmuthy appeared to be absorbed in considering 
the answer to his own recent question. 

“ Oh, I don’t mind,” he replied absently. 

Nevertheless, Sidney departed in search of Day. 

She was absent for some time, a time filled in, above 
stairs, with argument and exhortation. Day, however, 
was as adamant. 

“ It’s no use, Sidney,” she said flatly. “ I simply 
will not go down. It was a mean trick of yours to come 
to call me, when the creature hadn’t asked for me. Do 
you remember what I went through, three years ago? ” 

“ You, more than all the rest of us? ” Sidney asked 
unfeelingly. 

“ Yes, any amount more. He never would have much 
to say to Janet, and he only took you by way of Judith. 
What a shame that the engagement is off ! They seemed 
ideally matched up, as a pair of dunces. Yes, I know 
Judith is your cousin; but what of that? You don’t 
have to live her down.” 

“ Never mind Judith,” Sidney protested. “ Day, 
aren’t you coming down? ” 

“ No; I — are — not! ” Day answered firmly. “ When 
he was here before, I lugged him around on top of my 
conscience, until I became a thing of derision to the entire 
college. This time, I absolutely will not assume any such 
responsibility. He is your cousin; at least, he tried his 
best to be, and it is your duty to look after him.” 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


141 


Accordingly, Sidney went down alone. 

“ I am so sorry,” she offered vague apology; “ but 
I found Miss Argyle had an important engagement that 
I hadn’t known about.” 

Lord Axmuthy looked up with a wide and cheery smile. 

“ Oh, I wouldn’t mind too much about that,” he 
reassured Sidney. “ It isn’t as if to-day were the only 
day, you know. I expect to be about here till next 
summer.” 

“ Till — next summer! ” Sidney gasped. 

“ Yes. It’s not a bad idea,” Lord Axmuthy explained 
affably. “ I’ve been thinking it out, myself, since you 
went up-stairs. You see, Leslie’s sister matriculates, 
or something, this next June, and he’ll like to be about 
to watch her do it. It’s quite easy, too, to arrange it, 
for June isn’t but six months off. No, five. No — mm 
— six! ” The final result of his computations came out 
quite triumphantly. “ That’s not so long that we can’t 
stop on in the neighbourhood and wait till it is over. 
I’ve been thinking it all over, while you were gone away 
up-stairs,” he repeated, with manifest pride in his own 
announcement. 

And Sidney, hearing, came to the swift determination 
that, henceforward, she would leave to Lord Axmuthy 
no space for silent meditation. The result of such 
meditation was likely to be fraught with inconvenience. 


CHAPTER ELEVEN 


T HE two Popes, Amy and Helen, were curiously 
unlike; curiously unlike was their choice of friends. 
On that account, it had been agreed that their senior 
year vacations should be given up to two house parties, 
not one. Helen would entertain at Easter. Amy’s 
party, on the other hand, would take place immediately 
after Christmas, and her choice of guests had been 
foreordained in the preceding summer. 

At the eleventh hour, however, Janet Leslie revoked 
her own acceptance of the invitation. 

“ But you said you would,” Amy urged her, the more 
cordially because Janet was the least her favourite 
of all her coming guests. 

“ I know; but we didn’t expect Ronald then,” Janet 
explained. “Now that he is here, I can’t go off to 
leave him.” 

“ But if he stays till June? ” 

“ Lord Axmuthy may change his mind. Besides, it’s 
five years since we had a Christmas together.” 

“ You weren’t going to start until the twenty-seventh, 
anyway,” Amy reminded her. 

“ Yes; but even then — Really, Amy, you wouldn’t 
leave him, if he were your brother and just come back 
from two years in England,” Janet said quite simply. 


SIDNEY : HER SENIOR YEAR 


143 


For the space of a moment, there trembled upon the 
tip of Amy’s hospitable tongue the invitation to Janet 
to come and bring her brother with her. Then she held 
her peace. Ronald Leslie was astonishly good looking, 
and he had the manners of a charming boy. None the 
less, Amy had her doubts about him as an addition to 
her party. It was her girlish determination to make 
Jack Blanchard her most honoured guest. Janet, in 
the days past, had made no secret of her reservations 
concerning Jack. It would be no especial wonder if 
Janet’s brother should share her reservations. Ac- 
cordingly, Amy, liking Ronald well and admiring him 
not a little, yet withheld her invitation. Perhaps it was 
quite for the best. The invitation, instead of changing 
the course of events, merely would have hastened it 
a little, and events, in senior year, are best retarded. 

Lord Axmuthy had made his appearance at Smith 
College, ten days before the Christmas holidays. Ronald 
had followed him, a day or two later; and the two young 
men had taken up their abode together at the Inn. Ron- 
ald Leslie, in those early days of his return, was much 
with his mother, much with Janet. It had been no 
slight sacrifice for him, the leaving his mother and sister 
to make their way as best they could, alone, while he 
crossed the seas to England to act as mental sponsor 
for his chaotic, futile little lordship. The period of 
absence seemed to him unduly long, the distance from 
coast to coast unduly great; and he gained only a meagre 
satisfaction out of the generous drafts he sent them, 
every month. To his eager, loyal mind, it would have 


144 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


been vastly more to the purpose if he could have been 
at home with them, working at whatever came; but 
common sense rose to the rescue, and forced him to the 
realization that his immoderate salary counted for more, 
even, than his protecting presence, just now when Janet’s 
education was to be financed. 

Happily for Ronald Leslie, however, Lord Axmuthy 
was of a clinging nature, and refused to go from home 
without his secretary. Happily for him, too, three 
years before, Lord Axmuthy had engaged himself 
to a Boston girl, sister of Paul Addison and cousin 
of Sidney Stayre. Now, all at once, he had become 
possessed of the idea that it would be well to cross the 
ocean and talk over plans for getting married. Unhap- 
pily for Lord Axmuthy, though, an engagement born 
of two dozen days of social intercourse and nourished 
upon letters, frequent, but on the one side very brief, 
does not hold within itself all the essential elements 
of durability. There had been an hour of enthusiastic 
greeting; there had been four endless days of mutual 
boredom, followed by a day of friction. The next day, 
Lord Axmuthy had valeted himself into his suitcase, 
and departed in search of his ex-prospective cousin 
Sidney and of consolation. 

Not that Lord Axmuthy was broken-hearted, however. 
He took his shattered engagement, as he took all things 
else, with a kind of dreary nonchalance. None the less, 
he plainly was down-hearted, during those last weeks of 
the dying year. He spent long hours shut up in his room, 
alternately sorting over his neckties and choosing out 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


145 


those of the gloomiest tints, and sitting abstractedly 
before his desk, his hair awry and his pen ready in his 
fingers, awaiting the proper inspiration to proceed. 

Just once, the inspiration seemed about to catch him, 
and he even wrote, — 

“ I loved a girl, a shallow girl, 

But she was passing fair. 

About her face yellow curl 

lock of hair.” 

But, try as he would, he failed to fill in the missing 
words. For days afterwards, he sat during long hours 
at a time, gazing at the paper on his desk; but the in- 
spiration proved elusive. It never came again. Ac- 
cordingly, Lord Axmuthy was forced to abandon his 
cherished dream of sending a copy of the verses to 
Judith, for a New Year present. 

Ronald Leslie, meanwhile, had not the faintest pos- 
sible notion of the way in which his lordship spent his 
time. Ronald’s duties, estimated by the number of 
hours they took, were always slight; he judged it to be 
not the least of them to observe his lordship’s manifest 
desire for solitude. For that reason, Ronald felt him- 
self free to go his way at all sorts of odd hours which 
ordinarily were occupied by his employer. For the most 
part, these odd hours were given up to Janet and his 
mother. Now and then, however, when he found them 
busy, he went in search of his two old, old friends, Day 
Argyle and Sidney Stayre. 

Ronald had known both girls well, in his old days, 


146 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


the one at Grande Riviere, all one idle summer holiday, 
the other in Quebec during the next winter, a winter of 
abandoned dreams and plans, of hard work and of harder 
cares. He had seen both girls again, three years before, 
had seen them often during the long winter month that 
Lord Axmuthy had elected to spend in Northampton, 
and in the brief succeeding visits that had dotted the 
remainder of the college year. Often, too, since his 
last return to England, he had thought about them, 
remembering their good times together, and trying in 
vain to decide which one of them had proved the better 
chum. It was no easy question, either. Both girls had 
been of value to his growing manhood; he recognized 
his debt to both, but in such different ways. Sidney’s 
relation to him had been of steady loyalty, strong, un- 
changing, sane. Day’s had been more intermittent, 
but more inspiring while it lasted, albeit checkered now 
and then with petty misunderstandings and even hints 
of friction. The friction had been good for him; the 
misunderstandings had arisen, he admitted now, out 
of his own narrower British point of view. They had 
scratched his surface and ministered to his later growth. 
Moreover, they always had ended, leaving him better 
friends with Day than ever. As for Sidney, there had 
never been a question of her friendship. It was as 
stable and unchanging as were the old blue Laurentides 
that ringed his northern home, as unchanging and as 
restful. 

One only needed a glance into Ronald Leslie’s face 
to rest assured that he would be quick to appreciate 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


147 


such friendship. His changing colour, his short upper 
lip, the nervous contraction of his straight brown 
brows: all these things betrayed only too surely that 
he was sensitive, even a bit hot-tempered. Outwardly 
and even apart from the extreme refinement of his face, 
he was singularly good to look upon. He was a slim 
young giant, six feet three in his stockings, wide of 
shoulder, lean of limb, the greyhound type of Briton 
known the wide world over. His well-set head was 
crowned with a thatch of wavy dark brown hair; his 
clean-cut features, the healthy scarlet in his cheeks, 
and his bright brown eyes: these made him a man 
marked in any crowd. 

Ronald Leslie’s looks, however, were the least part 
of his attractions, once one knew him well. In spite of 
his peppery temper, his sensitive trick of picking up 
a slight where none had been intended, Ronald was 
intensely affectionate, intensely loyal. Unlike most 
young Americans of his age and class, moreover, he 
saw nothing especially unmanly in showing out his 
affection; he could see no reason why the whole world 
should not be aware that for him, as yet, Janet and, even 
more, his dainty little mother, were the central points 
of his own solar system. He even petted them in public; 
but the matter-of-fact fashion in which he went about 
the petting prevented its taking anything whatsoever 
from his manhood. 

Under such conditions as this, and inasmuch as it 
was now more than two years since his last trip out from 
England, it was no especial wonder that Janet had 


148 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


been loath to leave him. True, he would be in America 
until late June; but, during the termtime of her senior 
year, Janet's days would, of necessity, be full of other 
things. Ronald could have only her leisure time, not 
the whole day she longed to give him. Moreover, in 
the holidays, when all the girls were gone away, both she 
and Ronald could be in the Leslie house and alone with 
each other and their mother. Amy’s party would have 
its own attractions. Amy lived in Cleveland; her 
home was said to be most charming. Her mother was 
known to be equally charming, and the list of holiday 
plans concocted by her and Amy had been enough to 
dazzle Janet whose inborn Canadian simplicity had never 
wholly yielded to the habits of the gayest girl college 
that the States can show. None the less, she saw 
the twenty-seventh dawn and darken, without a single 
qualm of regret for the journey she might so easily 
have taken. 

Asked, at the end of the first week in Amy’s home, 
each one of the five guests would have given unqualified 
assent to the statement that the party was a brilliant 
success. However, a mere outsider, looking on, would 
have felt that it was likely to become a group of family 
duets. In the first place, Rob’s injured leg, never very 
strong, had been wrenched by a slip on the icy threshold 
of the dining-car. This curtailed his activities to some 
extent; and Day, as far as her duty to her hostess would 
allow, fussed over him like a motherly and distracted 
hen. Then, too, Paul Addison, yielding to some boyish 
spasm of self-consciousness, turned shy in Amy’s pres- 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


149 


ence, and clung to his cousin with a devotion which 
would have been comic, had it not been so decidedly 
ill-timed. This, of necessity, threw Jack on Am y’s 
tender mercies, an arrangement which neither of them 
seemed to consider tiresome in the very least. Of course, 
everybody did everything, save for a few of the out- 
door interests which Rob judged it the part of prudence 
to forego. But, no matter how they started out, the 
ending was the same: Amy and Jack, flanked on the 
one side by the brother and sister, upon the other hand 
by the two cousins. 

Not that Jack neglected the other girls, however. 
His attitude to Sidney was too well established to admit 
of any question. As for Day, they both knew that her 
place in his life was quite unique, although neither one 
of them had ever sought to analyze its nature. It was 
only that he and Amy found endless points of contact, 
endless subjects for discussion, countless ways of finding 
entertainment, each in the other’s point of view. Jack 
had never shown himself finer nor more manly than in 
those winter holidays; Amy had never been so gentle, 
so little self-assertive, so careful to sheathe the point 
of her wit, so thoughtful of the pleasure of her com- 
rades. And Mrs. Pope, always at hand and always 
watchful, noted the change with smiling eyes. Why 
not? Her young daughter was fast stepping towards the 
womanhood that now loomed close before her. 

The winter days and evenings, meanwhile, were pass- 
ing in a whirl of gayety. The weather was ideal, crispy 
cold, as the lake winters know so well how to be. There 


150 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


were drives and walks and skating parties; there were 
matinees and teas and dinners, and there was one 
wonderful night of grand opera, when the girls all 
put on their frilliest frocks and when Mary Garden 
sang. 

In the interval between the first and second acts, 
Rob crossed over to the back of the box and calmly 
drove Jack out of his chair. 

“ Go away,” he said composedly. “ You play with 
Day. I want to talk to Amy.” 

Jack, nothing loath, went forward and dropped down 
at Day’s side. She turned to greet him with the little 
smile she reserved for him and Rob alone. 

“ Wonderful; isn’t it? ” she said. “ Amy couldn’t 
have planned a better climax for our visit. I think 
it’s just as well that we’re starting for home, to-morrow 
afternoon.” 

“ It has been a good time, Day? You’ve enjoyed it? ” 
His voice sounded a little anxious. 

She attributed the note of anxiety to his interest in 
Amy’s complete success as hostess, and she smiled at 
the swift suspicion, as it crossed her mind. 

“ Of course. Why not? ” she asked directly. 

Jack dropped his voice a little. 

“ I was only afraid this strain of Rob’s had tied 
you up, rather more than you’d have liked.” 

“ You know it isn’t being tied up, when it’s a case 
of Rob,” she reminded him. “ For years, ever since 
the winter we were in Quebec, I’ve never seemed to 
catch up on all tfie things I had to say to him. It’s 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


151 


such fun to be with him. Of course, though,” her face 
clouded; “ I have been worried. It’s three years since 
he has had a set-back; I had supposed the danger of 
them was all over. Jack, do you suppose he ever will 
be quite strong? ” 

Most men, under such appealing eyes and in such sur- 
roundings, would have fibbed. Not Jack, however. 

“ Never quite sound, Day, I'm afraid,” he told her 
gently. “ One isn't, not after a hurt like that. All we 
can do is to look after him, and help him make the best 
of things.” 

She smiled up at him, without daring to trust herself 
to speak, and Jack went on more gently, even. 

“ After all, Day, the best is not going to be too bad. 
Rob has the good of life, as he goes along; he makes 
friends, good ones, wherever he is. If he were to be 
thrown on his own resources, it would make more 
difference; but your father will look out for that, has 
already looked out for it. I really think you needn't 
worry. I am only sorry you've had the care of this thing 
here, just when Amy has been planning an extra good 
time for us all together.” 

Turning, Day faced him happily, no reservation in her 
eyes. 

“ It has been a good time, Jack. Except for the little 
dragging worry about Rob, I have been happy, every 
single minute of the time.” 

For a long moment, Jack sat silent, looking into her 
face with eyes as brown and honest as her own. Then, — 

“ I, too,” he echoed her. 


152 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


Then came another pause. Day broke it, by saying 
with some inconsequence, but very gently, — 

“ And Amy is such a dear, you know/' 

As she spoke, she smiled directly into Jack’s intent 
brown eyes, too happily absorbed in her own vague 
girlish imaginings to heed the fact that, at her words, 
Jack’s keen brown eyes had clouded suddenly. 

“ I say, Amy,” Rob was remarking, under cover of 
Paul’s chatter to his cousin and Mrs. Pope; “ I wonder 
if you know what all this has meant to Jack.” 

“ How do you mean, Rob? ” Amy’s face betrayed 
the fact that she was purposely impenetrable. 

“ This is his first big thing, socially,” Rob reminded 
her. “ I fancy he will remember it as long as he lives.” 

“ I hope he will, I’m sure,” Amy said idly. “ "Why 
should he, though? More than the rest of you, I mean.” 
“ Do you remember last summer? ” 

“ Yes. Wasn’t he stunning in his red clothes? ” 
Amy made counter question, out of her wilful misunder- 
standings. 

“ I was referring to the row, Janet’s row,” Rob cor- 
rected her. “You needn’t be so majestical, Amy; 
there isn’t a living soul more loyal to Jack than I am. 
That’s the reason I know just what this visit is going to 
count to him. Of course, there was the wedding; but 
that was shorter and more official. He was asked there 
on the man’s account, too; and that makes lots of 
difference. Out here, it was you, just you, not any 
man about it; and you’ve given him the time of his 
whole life.” 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


153 


“ He has times enough at home in New York,” Amy 
argued perversely. 

“ Not of this kind, though,” Rob argued back again. 
“ He’s asked out more or less in our set; but the more 
is generally when Day and I are at home. Even then, 
he doesn’t always go. Hang it all, Amy!” Rob cast 
himself forward in his chair and eyed her steadily above 
his clasped hands. “ Can’t you see what I am- driving 
at: that I am tickled to pieces that there is somebody 
besides ourselves and Sidney who is learning to know 
Jack for what he honestly, truly is. No end of people 
like him. He makes friends on sight. You go deeper 
than the others, though; in time, you may find out just 
what he is and what he counts for.” 

“ Haven’t I now? ” Amy asked, half thoughtfully, 
half in a little mood of self-defence. 

Rob shook his head. 

“ Not yet. In fact,” he smiled down at his clasped 
fingers, and the smile was too intent to be very full of 
mirth; “ I sometimes think that we none of us will 
ever find it out completely. Still,” he rose, as the 
orchestra took up the introduction to the second act; 
“ it’s worth the trying, anyway.” 

And Amy’s answering smile gave token of her full 
agreement. 

None the less, when they reached home, that night, 
Jack’s genial brow was gloomy; and, in the pajama-ed 
talk at bedtime, in the great room he shared with Rob 
and Paul, Jack failed to make his customary con- 
tributions to the gossip with which the boys, as a rule, 


154 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


wound up the day. Paul, student fashion, sought to 
probe the mood with chaff; but Rob, knowing his 
friend better, seeing deeper, brought the talk to a hur- 
ried close and switched off the lights. 

“ Sleepy, old man? ” he queried then, pausing beside 
Jack in the darkness. 

An instant later, Jack felt the firm grip of Rob’s 
fingers on his fist, before he limped away to bed. 

Next morning, to every one’s surprise, the mood 
endured. Jack was perfectly courteous, perfectly 
cordial, and seemingly as full of fun as ever; but the 
spontaneity of it all had gone. It was as if, at the very 
last and in the presence of his hostess only, his kindly 
dignity had failed him, and he had become self-con- 
scious, distrustful of himself and her. Amy, on her own 
side, did her merry best to ignore the change in their 
relations, to pass it off as a thing of no account. None 
the less, the morning dragged slightly; the talk, despite 
Paul’s nonsense, lagged, and there came pauses which 
not even Day’s unfailing tact could break. Worst of 
all, it was too intangible to admit of any comment, even 
of cousinly asides. They all felt it; felt, too, instinc- 
tively, that to admit its existence as a theme for conversa- 
tion could only make the matter worse. 

With punctilious care, then, they carried out their 
morning plans of drive and luncheon. Carefully they 
kept up the pretext that nothing was amiss, kept it 
up with the more difficulty because no one of them but 
Jack, asked, could have told what really was amiss. 
The talk and chatter and the fun went on to the very 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


155 


end. Nevertheless, it was with a little sigh of dazed 
relief that the guests packed themselves into the train 
for home, and Amy found herself alone upon the plat- 
form, staring after the receding train, and wondering 
just what sort of an ill wind it would prove to be, this 
ill wind blowing up between her frank self and the honest 
personality of her favourite guest. 

Settled in the car, while the other boys arranged the 
hand luggage and Sidney was busy with the parting 
sheaf of roses which had met her on the station plat- 
form, Day turned to Jack impulsively. 

“ Cross, Jackie boy; or what is the matter? ” she 
inquired, while she bent forward towards him to rest 
her hand upon the linen-covered arm of his chair. 

Gravely his eyes met hers, and she thought she saw 
the colour rising in his cheeks ; but his answering voice 
was level and unfaltering. 

“Not with you, Day,” he told her, after an instant’s 
silence, and, speaking, his voice was grave, even as his 
eyes had been. “ Never with you, Day,” he repeated 
slowly. “ Only with myself.” 

And then, before Day could reply, or ask for explana- 
tion, Paul had swept down upon them with a question, 
and, to all appearing, the moment had completely gone. 


CHAPTER TWELVE 


T HE Monthly Room, down in the Student Building, 
is a cheery, sunshiny place of a winter afternoon, 
all windows and bookcases and a table in the middle, 
where the editorial board are supposed to have their 
sittings. As a matter of fact, however, they usually 
do have their sittings on the wide window seats whose 
cushioned tops disguise the fact that they are mere 
receptacles for old copies of the college magazine. 

To the aspirant for fame, literary and otherwise, it 
seems as if many a reputation had been made or marred 
inside that room. The freshman mind, in particular, is 
commonly prone to be a victim of that notion. Indeed, 
there is some degree of truth within the notion; for 
is it not a matter of historical record that the work of 
one budding genius was refused admission inside the 
wide white covers of the Monthly , not for any lack of 
merit, but for fear of what too early recognition might 
do to blight the promise of freshman precocity? Such 
tales as that, going abroad in the college, are prone to 
multiply their actual facts by dozens, until the tradition 
becomes established past gainsaying that early genius 
is no ticket of admission to the halls of fame. 

Nevertheless, freshmen still continue to knock at 
the Monthly doors, and will continue to knock until 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


157 


the magazine’s remotest end; and, one wet January 
afternoon, the editorial board, spread about at ease 
upon the cushions of the window seats, were engaged 
in tepid discussion regarding one such candidate. 

“ Her work is fair, just fair,” the head editor insisted, 
with a firmness which belied her mild blue eyes. 

Janet Leslie, quite as usual, was leading the ranks 
of the opposition. Just now, moreover, the opposition 
consisted of but two, Janet and another. 

“ It’s more than fair. It’s very original.” She em- 
phasized her words with a wave of the pages in her 
hand. “ Really, girls, it’s ages since we’ve had a better 
idea than there is in this story.” 

“ The idea is well enough,” a voice responded tran- 
quilly. “ The trouble is with the story. It is high- 
flown, and yet it sounds as if it were shovelled together. 
It’s chaotic, and it’s rough at all the edges.” 

“ So is Kipling,” Janet retorted. 

“ And Frank Norris,” added her supporter. 

Janet disdained the support. 

“ I never heard of him. What did he do? ” 

“ Oh, things, and The Pit” her adherent coached her, 
in a swift aside. Then she raised her voice. “ Can’t 
you girls see that that’s the whole genius of the thing? ” 
she demanded. “ The style just suits the idea. The 
girl must have spent hours hunting it out; or else she 
really is a natural genius.” 

“ That kind doesn’t flourish here,” the head editor 
said, with a gloom developed by five months of seeking 
the flower of genius in the ten-acre lot of mediocrity. 


158 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


“ Time it did, then. Who did you say the girl was, 
Janet? A freshman? ” 

“ It’s Phil Stayre.” Janet smoothed out the leaves 
from which she had been reading. 

“ Who is she? ” 

“ Sidney’s sister.” 

“ The one they call the Dromedary? ” The question 
sounded a little bit incredulous. 

“ Even so,” Janet responded calmly. 

“ You don’t mean it! Well, she looks a genius.” 

The head editor lifted her eyes sharply, a frown above 
her laugh. 

“ That’s not fair, Polly. I mean to go in for writing, 
myself, you know, and I resent the theory that a person 
must be a dowd, or else an incapable, to make a success 
of it. If ever I do write in earnest, write as a profession, 
my first care will be to have good clothes and to know 
how to put through a dinner party without bungling. 
As for this story — ” 

“Thanks,” Janet interpolated. “I too have inkish 
aspirations.” 

And Polly, whose baptismal name was Pauline 
Evelyth, subsided, until she could recast her theories 
of genius. 

“ As to this story,” the head editor continued; “ we 
none of us can tell anything about it from Janet’s read- 
ing.” 

“ Thanks,” Janet interposed again. “ Why not, 
please? ” 

“ Because you forgot it wasn’t a rehearsal for dra- 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


159 


matics,” a minor editor said bluntly. “ As it is now, we 
none of us know how much of it is you, and how much 
the story.” 

“ It mostly is,” Janet answered rather more vaguely 
than she was quite aware. 

“ And another thing,” the head editor said slowly; 
“ if we do put in this story, won’t we get credit for doing 
it out of regard to Sidney’s feelings? ” 

Janet sought to close the discussion. 

“ Rubbish! ” she said, and started for the door. 

“ Don’t be too sure that it would be an advantage to 
Sidney’s feelings,” a voice suggested. 

Janet turned back again. 

“ Why not? ” she asked crisply. “ She’s her sister.” 

“ Precisely.” The speaker leaned back, yawning, on 
her cushions, and idly traced the path of a falling drop 
upon the pane outside. “ My own acquaintance with 
Phil Stayre is limited, very limited. In fact, I have 
been at some pains to keep it so. However, watching 
the two girls together, it’s my belief that Sidney has 
no especial cause to welcome anything that’s likely to 
make Phil any more cocky.” 

“ Sidney is very fond of her.” Janet crossed the room 
and sat down beside the table. “ She’s proud of her, 
too.” 

“ She must be! ” shrieked an answering chorus which 
included even the mild-eyed head editor. 

“ She is,” Janet iterated firmly. “ She was simply 
delighted, when Phyllis made the German club, the 
youngest freshman ever to go in. I was there, when the 


160 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


news came, and I know. However, in a thing like this, 
Sidney’s opinion doesn’t count. She never has cared 
a straw about the Monthly, nor about the writing girls. 
It isn’t in her line; and it would never occur to her 
that there was any especial honour in a freshman’s 
getting in.” 

“ In that case — and you ought to know, Janet — 
we might as well — ” The head editor hesitated for a 
courteous word. 

“ Put the thing in,” Janet interrupted. 

“ No. Leave it out; at least, for the present. Later 
on, if we get short of stuff, we can take it.” 

“ You’d much better take it now,” Janet advised. 

“ It’s too crude and too jerky.” 

“ But it’s strong. Look at that climax. It really 
comes to something, not just fizzles out into mere lan- 
guage, as Monthly stories almost always do,” Janet 
argued. 

The chorus broke out again, this time reproachfully 
and in variants of the rebuking theme, — 

“ Oh-h, Janet Leslie! ” 

“ I can’t help it; it’s true,” Janet said a bit defiantly. 
“ I don’t write fiction, only gists, so I suppose I haven’t 
any reason to state an opinion; but really, girls, nine 
tenths of our stories don’t go anywhere. They are 
pretty and sweet; but they’re just about as expressive 
as a French doll in a lace nightie. This thing of Phil’s 
is all backbone.” 

The head editor yawned politely behind her hand. 
As usual in the heat of argument, Janet Leslie had flown 


SIDNEY : HER SENIOR YEAR 


161 


free from the facts of the case, and needed to be brought 
back to truth. 

11 Yes, maybe,” she assented. “ Still, for my part, I 
like my vertebrae to be padded up a little.” 

Janet rose once more. 

“ As you will,” she said rather haughtily. “ Of course, 
you must do as you think best. It's my advice, though, 
that you put it in. If she gets the least bit of encourage- 
ment, there's no telling how far Phil Stayre will go.” 

The head editor smiled grimly. 

“ No,” she agreed. “ I should judge there wasn’t.” 

Strange to say, it had been Day Argyle, dainty and 
sweet, who had discovered in Phyllis this sinister 
streak of something nearly akin to genius. According 
to her resolution, expressed to Sidney, Day had taken 
it upon herself to try in earnest to penetrate the shell 
of Sidney’s molluscan sister. She had dropped in on 
Phyllis at all sorts of odd hours, had coaxed her out for 
walks, had had her over to vespers, followed by Sunday 
night supper. Phyllis had submitted to the socializing 
process in the same chastened fashion in which she would 
have yielded to any other dose, bitter, but palpably 
intended for her good. Day she had accepted as a part 
of the dose, the sugary coating of the pill, and hence a 
necessary evil. For Phyllis, by this time, had made her 
first discovery born of her academic surroundings: 
that no one-sided girl can for long stand out as a warn- 
ing beacon to her comrades. The girls who influence 
the college, the girls who blaze new trails for emulation, 
or even for tradition, must be well-rounded mortals, 


162 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


with infinite points of contact. Phyllis still held firmly 
to her theory that her mission in life was to be improv- 
ing; improvement being denied apparently to girls of 
one dimension, she shut her teeth and set to work to 
increase her points of contact. 

It was here that Day helped her most; here, in fact, 
that Day, out of all the girls, was first to see that help 
was needed. Bit by bit, by suggestion, argument and 
even good, sound lectures, Day set to work to aid Phyllis 
in becoming a little more normal. Alternately she 
set her down beside girls who shared her own besetting 
sins, and took her out to meet girls who were the very 
opposite of Phyllis’s thorny, horny self, girls whose 
fluffy hair hid brains of reputation all the college over, 
girls whose frilly frocks were dotted with the pins 
of the departmental clubs whose membership no mere 
popularity can ever win, girls who danced and golfed 
just as well as they made chemical analyses, and essays 
on Blake, girls who could criticize with equal skill 
the design of an imported frock and of a formal 
garden. 

Phyllis said little to indicate that she realized the value 
of this new form of education. As a rule, her attitude 
was that of passive observation, even a little scornful 
now and then. Again and again Day was minded to 
give up in despair the effort to make anything normal 
out of the awkward, self-assertive freshman she had 
taken as her own especial charge. Then, just as she 
was ready to abandon the attempt as useless, some trivial 
sign of change encouraged her, bade her to persevere. 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


163 


If she could make Phyllis over into a real college girl, 
Day reflected, it would be well worth her while. If 
not? She sighed. All of her own intimate friends had 
gone to Springfield for the afternoon. It would have 
been good to go with them, if only — She smothered 
her regrets, and knocked on Phyllis’s door. 

Phyllis lifted her head, and spoke shamefacedly. 

“ I was wishing you’d come, Day. I wanted to show 
this thing to you. I want you to tell me honestly if 
it’s any good,” she said, and, rising brusquely, she 
tossed some inky, blotted sheets into Day’s lap. 

And Day, reading, knew by instinct that it was 
good, very, very good, although her own gentler tastes 
were for a daintier, more polished form of art. Phyllis 
used her pen, not like a rapier, but like a shillelagh; 
but it could not be denied that the shillelagh had its 
power. 

That had been before Christmas. Four weeks later, 
the Monthly editors were engaged in warm discussion 
of the merits of Phyllis Stayre’s production. Ultimately 
it was taken in; but the decision was not reached 
until some time after Janet had departed from the 
official sanctum. 

“ Where are you going, Janet? ” her one adherent 
had remonstrated, at her second rising. 

Janet thrust her arms into the sleeves of her rain coat, 
the ungainly coat of black and shiny rubber which 
fashion just then was ordaining as the proper garment for 
bad weather. Encased in them, the girls resembled 
nothing so much as an Amazonian police corps; but 


164 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


they cared nothing about that. At Smith, as elsewhere, 
fashion must dominate all art. 

“ Over to Twenty,” she said tersely, as she shrugged 
the coat up across her shoulders. 

“ What for? ” 

“ To see Amy Pope.” 

“ But we aren't through yet,” the head editor said 
politely, for she feared she might have been a little curt, 
a moment earlier. 

“ I am,” Janet made composed reply. 

“ There are some other things we really must talk 
over.” 

“ I can't help that. You can go on and talk them. 
I’ve said my say, and the rest of it you can do without 
me.” Janet's tone was not bitter, only very firm. 
Then she took her departure. 

According to her expectations, she found Ronald 
waiting for her at the door. His bright face broke into 
a laugh, as she came towards him down the steps. 

“ What a jolly little Bobby you look in that thing, 
Janet! But aren’t you early? ” 

The determination left her eyes, as she snuggled her 
hand inside his arm. 

“ Not so long as you are here. Have you been waiting 
long? ” 

“ I'm only just here. Axmuthy had a fit of the blues, 
and I had to console him, before I could get off. Poor 
chap ! He takes his broken engagement so very much to 
heart.” 

“ Did you think he cared for Judith so much as all 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


165 


that comes to? ” Janets accent showed that, whatever 
Lord Axmuthy’s opinion, she was not enthusiastic over 
Judith. 

“ No-o.” Ronald prolonged the word thoughtfully. 
“ It isn’t that. Beyond her being a pretty, dainty little 
mortal, he didn’t care for her. In fact, if she hadn’t 
made up her mind to get — ” 

“Hush!” Janet protested, laughing. “It isn’t 
decent to abuse another girl to me.” 

“ You’re nothing but my little sister, and Judith is 
rather a — ” 

Janet laughed again. She was now quite another 
Janet from the girl who had been arguing in the open 
meeting. 

“ Stiff proposition? ” she made audacious query. 
“You needn’t look so shocked; that’s what they say at 
Harvard. But, if Lord Axmuthy doesn’t care for Judith, 
what in the world is the matter with him? ” 

“ Conscience,” her brother told her. “ It makes him 
sound a bit of a cad, Janet; but he’s not. He is not 
a cad in the least. It is only that he has an overgrown 
sense of honour, and it is warped a little bit, like most 
of his other qualities. As nearly as I can get at the 
root of the matter, he is glad to have broken off with 
Judith — of course, he let her do the breaking — 
but now he is worrying for fear he hadn’t made it plain 
to her just what she was about to lose.” 

“ I should think she might have discovered, by this 
time.” Janet’s chuckle was irreverent. “ He isn’t 
especially opaque. Where is he now? ” 


166 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


“ I dropped him at the Tyler, as I came along.” 

“ Poor Sidney! ” Janet said. 

“No; it's Day, this time. He says that, after all, 
she understands him better.” 

Janet forgot her earlier rebuke to Ronald. 

“ Because she doesn’t know Judith quite so well? ” 
she made flippant query. Then she held her peace, 
for, as they rounded the corner of the Tyler House, 
Lord Axmuthy came towards them down the steps. 

“ Oh! ” he said. Then apparently he bit his idea in 
two, and swallowed the latter half of it. 

Janet nodded the more cordially, because she was 
afraid Lord Axmuthy might have overheard her words 
to Ronald. 

“ How do you do? ” she called blithely. 

“ Very bad,” Lord Axmuthy made gloomy rejoinder. 
Then he added, “ How extraordinarily ugly you all 
look! I fancy you must have bought it by the dozen.” 

“ It? ” Janet’s tone was a trifle blank. 

“The coat thing. It’s quite unladylike, you know. 
I’d hate to see my step-mother wearing one.” 

Ronald suppressed a smile behind a yawn. As Lord 
Axmuthy’s step-mother was seventy, buxom and 
addicted to point lace caps, the association of ideas was 
piquant. Janet sought to defend herself, however. 

“ They keep us very dry, and we don’t always have to 
stop for an umbrella.” 

Lord Axmuthy took a firm grip of his own umbrella 
with his left hand, and, with his right one, screwed his 
glass into his eye. 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


167 


“ Oh, but I would,” he urged. “ Really, it’s better 
not to get a habit of such things.” 

“ Which things? ” Janet inquired. “ Umbrellas? ” 

“ These coat things,” Lord Axmuthy persisted. 
“ They’re rather like a suffragette, you know; one looks 
for you to beat him with your bonnet next.” 

Prudently Janet dodged the political aspect of the 
case, and came to the personal one. 

“ Where are going? ” she asked his lordship. 

“ Home.” Lord Axmuthy again spoke gloomily. 
Then all at once his tone brightened. “ Unless I go 
along with you,” he added. 

For their convenience in walking together under one 
umbrella, Janet’s hand still rested on her brother’s arm. 
Now she felt the arm tighten beneath her fingers, and 
she was quick to guess the reason of that tightening. 
Her call upon Amy, that afternoon, was not so much 
an errand on her own account as it was an excuse for 
Ronald to drop in upon her classmate. Not a word of 
that had she said, however; it had been in a most 
casual fashion that she had asked Ronald to stop there 
for a moment with her, before going on down town. 
Perverse Janet Leslie might be; but she was never 
dense, least of all when it concerned her brother Ronald, 
her idol and ideal. Strange to say, moreover, though 
adoring him completely, Janet had never taken the 
attitude of many an adoring sister, that Ronald’s 
attentions must be for herself alone. She was his 
sister. In that place, she easily stood first, for Mrs. 
Leslie’s other daughter, older and long since married, 


168 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


had gradually drifted out of the inner circle of the family. 
She was Ronald’s favourite sister, then. However, 
that did not of necessity imply that his life held no place 
for other girls. 

Accordingly, she had done her best to see that Ronald, 
coming to Northampton, should meet the choicest of 
her classmates. Among them, as a matter of course, 
had been Amy Pope; and it had been no small pleasure 
to Janet that Amy and Ronald, grafting this present 
meeting upon their slight acquaintance of three years 
before, should lose no time in becoming capital friends. 
Amy, downright and forceful, liked Ronald for his 
gentleness which, for some reason she could never 
fathom, took nothing whatsoever from his virility. 
Ronald, on his side, found Amy’s outspoken nature, her 
agile wit and her splendid sense of honour a restful 
change after the artificial maidens he had met from time 
to time by way of Axmuthy. His own unlikeness to 
Amy, moreover, the difference in their points of view, 
only cemented their friendship the more closely. 

Their first real talk together had taken place, the 
night of Amy’s return from the holidays. Janet, going 
over to reiterate to Amy her own regrets concerning her 
absence, had asked Ronald, quite by chance, to go with 
her. Amy, a little bit downhearted by reason of the 
slight cloud that had blurred the final glory of her party, 
had found the tall Canadian, virile, yet curiously gentle, 
a solace to her injured feelings. The quality of the 
deference he gave her conversation made her feel in 
some elusive fashion that all her world was not involved 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


169 


within her recent disappointment. Later, he had called 
again, and yet again, sometimes alone, sometimes with 
Janet. Janet, meanwhile, looking on with girlish satis- 
faction in their growing friendship, developed a sudden 
curiosity regarding the quality of the tea served at 
divers small resorts known to the college, a curiosity 
which only could be appeased by tasting the tea in 
company with Amy Pope and Ronald. 

Amy was busy just then, exceedingly busy. Certain 
work that could be done up ahead, she was facing now, 
in preparation for the later months of spring when the 
play would demand her full attention; certain essays, 
due next term, she was preparing now. Nevertheless, 
busy as she was, she yet found time for all the calls 
and all the little impromptu teas. Ronald Leslie's quiet 
trick of making her feel she was something valuable, 
something infinitely rare and precious, was very soothing 
to the tall, self-reliant girl just then. Down in her heart 
of hearts, she was quite well aware that it was probably 
Ronald's attitude to any girl he chanced to meet. 
None the less, she liked it, liked it the more because, for 
some reason she could not discover, the rest of her gay 
world had suddenly gone awry. To Amy Pope, in those 
dull, thawing January days, days when the dark gray 
pools of water came up above the snow, days when the 
branches of the elms lashed the raw air with futile fury, 
the memory of herself, standing alone upon the station 
platform and wondering what ill wind had blown in 
upon her: that memory could blot out the present 
consciousness of all the rest of her gay world. And 


170 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


now Ronald Leslie, tall and strong and infinitely gentle, 
had come to rouse her from her unreasoning gloom, 
unreasoning, for the honest fact of the whole matter 
was that Amy Pope had no real notion what she was 
gloomy about, or why she should be gloomy in the first 
place. The mood just was; that was all. 

All this, however, Ronald Leslie could not know. 
What he did know was merely that he liked Amy Pope 
extremely; that he was bidding fair, in time, to like 
her as he did Day and Sidney, to count upon her as a 
lasting friend. Ronald Leslie was not given to useless 
self-analysis. It was enough for him that he liked 
Amy and that, to all appearing, she liked him in return. 
He promptly set to work to see as much of her as pos- 
sible. Though he was not of an analytic turn of mind, 
yet he was human. Having discovered, as he phrased 
it, Amy Pope, he had no mind to share the discovery 
with some one else, and so his arm had tightened warn- 
ingly across his sister's fingers, when Lord Axmuthy 
had suggested his idea of joining them. 

“ I can go along with you, you know," Lord Axmuthy 
was repeating generously. 

“ Oh, don't trouble," Ronald made hasty rejoinder. 
“ It's very wet, and it would only take you out of your 
way." 

“ Didn't you find Miss Argyle in? " Janet asked him 
pointedly. 

From beneath his dripping umbrella, Lord Axmuthy 
gazed at her for a moment of silent contemplation. 

“ I didn't ask," he told her then. 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


171 


“ But I thought Ronald said you had gone to call on 
her.” 

“ So I had.” 

Janets laugh refused to be held in. 

“ But how in the world did you suppose she would 
know you were there? ” she demanded merrily. 

“ I didn’t. I didn’t care to see her, after all.” 

“ Why not? ” 

“ Because I saw the other one just going in ahead of 
me.” 

Experience had taught Janet that it was Lord Ax- 
muthy’s habit thus to allude to Phyllis Stayre, so she 
wasted no time in seeking to clear up that point. In- 
stead, — 

“ What has that to do with Day? ” she asked. “ Be- 
sides, Phil might not have been going to their room.” 

Lord Axmuthy shook his head in a series of wide arcs. 

“ She always is, when I’m about,” he made gloomy 
dissent. “ I was afraid Miss Argyle would bring her 
down.” 

“ Not unless you asked for her.” 

“ She would have had to, you know, if the other one 
had wanted; and she would have wanted,” he asserted. 
“ She seems to like a row.” Then he added, in a new 
mood of comparative cheer, “ No matter, though. I 
can go along with you. It’s safer, because, if she’s 
there, she’s bound not to be somewhere else.” And 
he fell into step beside them. 

Just as they came out into Green Street, he spoke 
again, apparently from the core of his own meditations. 


172 


SIDNEY : HER SENIOR YEAR 


“ Really, you know,” he observed, in a meteoric 
flight of rhetoric; “ she’s so very gauche that she’s 
positively gawky. At least,” he added, with a glance 
at Ronald, as if in search of admiration; “ that’s what 
you Americans would say.” 

“ I’m no American,” Ronald parried. 

Lord Axmuthy, his jaw somewhat agape, turned to 
face his secretary, apparently forgetful of Phyllis, beside 
the political interests involved. 

“ No,” he admitted grudgingly at length. “ No; 
you’re not. You would have been, you know, if their 
chaps had only fought a very little harder; and then,” 
his face lighted with the magnitude of the query he was 
ready to propound; “ and then what the deuce could 
you have done about an accent? ” 

And Ronald confessed to himself a due measure of 
relief when a hail from Sidney, crossing the street just 
behind them, saved him from answering so difficult a 
question. 


CHAPTER THIRTEEN 


" A IS for anthropoidal ape, 

/ \ Also for Axmuthy, always agape ! ” 

Amy Pope, speaking, hurled her best hat down on 
the divan which ran from the fireplace a good third 
of the way around the pretty drawing-room. “ Sidney 
Stayre, if you don't proceed immediately and at once to 
call off your potential cousin, I'll start a mutiny in the 
class and dethrone you." 

Sidney, unmoved by the threat, merely picked up the 
hat and fell to smoothing the feathers. 

“ He's not my potential cousin any more, Amy. He 
and Judith settled that, six weeks ago. What's the 
matter, anyway?" 

“ Lord Axmuthy is the matter," Amy responded, with 
unwonted testiness. 

“ Don't play with him, then," Day advised her, from 
the great chair drawn up before the open fire. 

“ I didn't. How could I know the creature was going 
to be there? " 

" Where? " Sidney put the hat, feathers and all, 
on top of a flying Mercury who promptly vanished, all 
but his white ankles, inside the crown. “ Your remarks 
lack coherence, Amy." 


174 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


“ I’ve caught it from him, then.” Amy cast herself 
down among the cushions. 

“ When I was a little girl and had invited company to 
dinner,” Day informed the blazing coals; “ if I was cross 
to them, I got sent to bed.” 

Amy disdained the information, apropos as it was. 
Instead of heeding it, she went back to give a belated 
answer to Sidney’s question. 

“ I’ve been having tea with Mother Leslie,” she an- 
nounced. 

“ Oh. And he was there. What else could you ex- 
pect? ” Day observed unfeelingly. 

“ Anything else. I thought Mother Leslie had some 
grains of sense,” Amy said viciously, as she sat up and 
punched home her loosened hairpins. “ Janet tele- 
phoned me to meet her there.” 

“ With Ronald? ” Day questioned, with a little smile. 

“ Well — yes,” Amy admitted. “ She did say some- 
thing or other about him. She never mentioned Lord 
Axmuthy, though, and I supposed he would have the 
sense to stay at home.” 

“ On what precedents did you base your expectations, 
Amy? ” Sidney inquired solemnly, and Amy’s petu- 
lance vanished in the general laughter. 

There had been a certain reason, however, in Amy’s 
ruffled temper, that late January afternoon, a reason 
which did not lie entirely in the fact that Lord Axmuthy 
had broken in upon her anticipated good time with 
Ronald Leslie. True, Ronald had been the real attraction 
that had lured Amy forth to seek Mrs. Leslie’s tray, 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


175 


that rainy afternoon; but, under some conditions, 
she could have borne patiently the coming of another 
guest. The real annoyance to Amy had lain, not in the 
coming of the guest, but in the manner of his conversa- 
tion. Lord Axmuthy’s utterances, that day, had an- 
tagonized her beyond all endurance, yet she had been 
helpless to stand out against them. One could no more 
argue with Lord Axmuthy than with a rubber dog. 

All of a sudden, in the middle of some unrelated theme 
or other, Janet had looked up from her cup of tea. 

“ Oh, Mummy, that reminds me,” she had said. “ Did 
you know Rob is coming up, next week? ” 

“ Next week? ” 

“ Mid-years, you know,” Janet reminded her. “ Day 
told me so, just now.” 

Lord Axmuthy pricked up his ears. 

“ Rob Argyle? The fellow with the leg? ” he queried. 

“ Most fellows answer to that description,” Amy told 
him dryly, for it had been to her that the query appar- 
ently had been addressed. 

“ Oh, yes; but not of that sort,” Lord Axmuthy had 
added, by way of explanation. 

“ Not as a rule.” Amy’s tone was still more dry. 
“ There aren’t so many boys like Rob.” 

“ You know him, then? ” Lord Axmuthy asked, as if 
surprised that she should have that privilege. 

“ Certainly.” Amy turned back to Ronald a little 
too pointedly for the strictest code of etiquette. 

The Englishman refused to be suppressed. 

“ Argyle always did know all sorts of people,” he 


176 


SIDNEY : HER SENIOR YEAR 


remarked to his spoon. “ I fancy it’s his leg, or else 
it is the way they do things over here.” 

Janet, forgetful of certain past chapters in their joint 
experience, sought to create a digression. 

“ And Jack thinks he may possibly come, too,” she 
added to her mother. 

Lord Axmuthy was not to be digressed. 

“ Oh, yes, the porter chap,” he assented, appropriat- 
ing the information to himself. “ That is the other one 
I meant.” 

“ The other one? ” Janet’s mind flew off to Phyllis. 

Lord Axmuthy gave an almost imperceptible jerk of 
his spoon in the direction of Amy. 

“ Besides her,” he offered explanation tersely. 

Amy turned back again with a jerk. 

“ Mr. Blanchard is not a porter.” 

“ He used,” Lord Ajanuthy made laconic answer. 

“ Never in this world! ” Amy’s temper, worn a little 
thin by extra work and too much tea, was fast giving 
way. 

Lord Axmuthy prepared to contest his point by bring- 
ing forth his evidence. 

“ Oh, yes; he was,” he insisted. “ I remember him; 
he was a terribly determined sort of chap, too, a good 
deal like Miss Stayre; not Sidney, you know, but the 
other one. Besides,” he added, as a powerful conclusion; 
“ he used to be all over buttons.” 

“ Do you generally tie on your things, Lord Ax- 
muthy? ” Janet asked him flippantly. 

Above the edge of the cup poised midway to his lips, 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


177 


Lord Axmuthy gazed across at her in ruminative silence. 
His mouth, meanwhile, opened to receive the cup, 
remained increasingly ajar. Then, after a long, long 
interval, he set down the cup. 

“ Oh, really, that’s very good,” he said approvingly. 
“ By George, it’s very good. Tie on my things. By 
George! ” 

Between his recurring waves of mirth which bade 
fair to continue for an indefinite period, Amy took her 
dignified departure. Ronald went with her, on plea 
of the growing duskiness outside; and, as he walked 
away beside her, he was conscious of a vague wonder- 
ment at the unwonted silence that marked her mood. 
Born a Canadian and accustomed as he had become 
by now to the vagaries of his British lordship, he could 
not for the life of him see why those vagaries should 
have ruffled Amy so completely. Even less still could 
he discern the real reason for her silence, not resentful, 
but rather thoughtful. Day, whom she had seen, that 
very morning, had made no mention to her of Jack’s 
possible arrival. Day’s omission, as it chanced, had 
been quite unintentional; but Amy Pope, just then, 
was in a mood to seek intention where none existed. 
Day’s failure to report Jack’s plans seemed to her to 
darken the little cloud of misunderstanding which 
already lay around them. Happy as she always was 
to be with Ronald, to feel herself under the heedful, 
protecting care which few had ever thought to offer 
to her independent self, Amy was yet very silent, 
as they crossed the campus. Ronald’s dark eyes 


178 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


showed a little mystified, a little hurt, as he turned 
away at the foot of her own steps and left her to go 
on alone. 

Janet, meanwhile, had remained with her mother, 
partly because she always clung to the last moment of 
anything approaching the old domestic life they used to 
lead and love, in part because she knew that, staying 
herself, she would force Lord Axmuthy to stay with her. 
Little as Janet enjoyed his lordship’s society, she was by 
no means minded to have him spoil her brother’s walk 
with Amy. She knew Amy well enough to be quite 
aware that she had been dangerously near the outside 
limits of her patience; she also knew that Ronald, who 
really hated tea, had patiently sat about and swallowed 
his allotted number of cups, for the simple sake of being 
on hand to walk home with Amy. Lord Axmuthy, how- 
ever cheerily discursive, would have added little to the 
general enjoyment of the walk. Accordingly, Janet 
stuck to her place beside the tray, and plied the guest 
with hot and buttery buns. 

At length, when Lord Axmuthy had been rendered 
speechless by too much bun, Janet turned back again 
to her mother. 

“ Mummy,” she suggested; “ let’s have a party.” 

“ A party, Janet? ” It was small wonder that Mrs. 
Leslie’s voice showed some surprise. Such hospitable 
suggestions were more wont to come from her than from 
Janet. 

‘'Yes, a mid-years party,” Janet persisted. “Can’t 
you manage it, Mummy? Ever so many of the girls 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


179 


will be away. You could feed the others early and put 
them to bed, upstairs.” 

“ What kind of a party, Janet? ” her mother asked her. 

“ Some sort of a supper, or a dinner, or something,” 
Janet said vaguely. “ If Rob and Jack are here, it will 
be good to have you entertain us all, the ones who were 
in your house, last summer.” 

“ Eh? ” Lord Axmuthy queried, as he bolted his last 
bit of bun. “ A good plan, that. I say, let's do it. I’d 
help it on all I could. We’d have some games, you 
know, like our Christmas party at the Chateau.” He 
turned to Janet, in search of answering enthusiasm. 

“ I am afraid Mr. Blanchard is too old to care for 
games,” Janet told him, a little bit maliciously. 

“ Blanchard? Oh, that! No matter, we could leave 
him out,” his lordship answered. 

“ Sidney and Day might have something to say about 
that,” Janet reminded him. 

“ Oh, no; I fancy not. They used to like him; but 
that’s no reason they should go about to dine with him,” 
he persisted. “ Really, you know, a ch&p in his position 
is bound to be quite common.” 

A sudden spark of anger kindled in Janet Leslie’s 
eyes. Before her mother could interpose, the same 
anger rang in her haughty, clear young voice. 

“ Not at all, Lord Axmuthy,” she said, as she rose. 
“ He is very uncommon indeed. All in all, Mr. Blan- 
chard,” with a sudden impetuous sweep of her gloved 
hand, she seemed to be casting all her earlier reserva- 
tions from her; “ Mr. Blanchard is one of the most per- 


180 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


feet gentlemen I have ever known.” And, as Amy 
Pope had done before her, she stalked away out of the 
room without one backward glance. 

Lord Axmuthy, agape, stared after her, stirring his 
tea, the while, with a blind energy that sent it splashing 
to the saucer. At last, he spoke. 

“ By Jove! ” he said. “ How strange! ” 

“ But, Janet,” her mother said to her, next day; 
“if we do have this supper we shall have to ask Lord 
Axmuthy.” 

“ Why? ” Janet’s tone was mutinous. 

“ On Ronald’s account, if for nothing else.” 

“ He isn’t Ronald’s guest.” 

“ No, not exactly; but — ” 

However, Janet interrupted. 

“ And he certainly doesn’t minister to Ronald’s 
comfort, especially where Amy is concerned.” 

“ No; but — ” 

“ And he’s bound to be horrid to Jack.” 

This time, her mother’s words struck home. 

“ Unless you are enough of a hostess to prevent it,” 
she said gently. “ Those things usually can be avoided, 
with a little tact.” 

Janet’s sigh was acquiescent. Then she mutinied 
once more. 

“ I hate tact,” she said. “ It’s only varnishing down 
the slivers. I’d rather go to work and plane them off 
and have them done with.” 

Mrs. Leslie smiled up into the eyes beside her. 

“ That takes more time, sometimes a good deal more 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


181 


time than one can get. Meanwhile, isn’t it better to 
hold the slivers down, where they can’t do any harm? ” 

“ Ye-es.” Janet, balanced on the arm of her mother’s 
chair, swayed gently to and fro during a thoughtful 
moment. “ I suppose you’re right, Mummy; you gen- 
erally are,” she said, with a regretful sigh. “ Still, once in 
a while, it would do my soul very much good, if I might 
just punch his lordship.” 

“ Ronald says he’s very kind, and the soul of honour,” 
her mother reminded her. 

“ Ronald is an angel,” Janet retorted. “ Being that, 
he sees things with angelic eyes.” 

Her mother shook her head. 

“ Ronald is a man, dearie,” she corrected. “ He sees 
things as a man should do, broadly. He forgets Lord 
Axmuthy’s odd ways, beside the real good there is in 
him.” 

Janet sighed once more. 

“ If only he weren’t so preposterous! ” she said. 

And her mother, hearing, forebore to disagree. Down 
in her secret heart, moreover, she was well pleased that 
Janet should hold to this unsentimental opinion of her 
son’s employer. 

Now, after a little interval, she changed the subject. 

“ Janet,” she asked; “ what was worrying Amy, 
yesterday afternoon? ” 

“ Lord Axmuthy,” Janet made answer promptly. 
“ He was enough to worry a snail. I know Amy rather 
well, Mummy, a good deal better than I am supposed 
to do; and I expected, any minute, that she’d turn 


132 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


around and box his ears. She was longing to do it. 
I saw it in her eyes.” 

“ Yes.” Mrs. Leslie’s assent held its own degree of 
reservation, bom of her keen-eyed study of Amy’s 
face, while the plans for the next week had been an- 
nounced. Amy had smiled; but, underneath her 
smile, she had looked worried, troubled. “ Yes. But 
why? ” 

“ Obviously, because he’s he, and always bound to 
be.” Then Janet shifted from the dangerous ground. 
“ And you really think you’ll have the supper? Aren’t 
you a darling? ” 

Mrs. Leslie’s laugh was girlish enough to match her 
slim, lithe figure, her bright face; girlish enough, too, 
to disavow the daughter who still sat, balancing to and 
fro upon the chair arm. Indeed, seen side by side as 
they were now, Janet’s keen, intent face looked scarcely 
younger than did the carefree, merry one beside it. 
Mrs. Leslie had known her sorrows, her worries, had 
even, for a year or two, known hard, grinding work. 
None the less, all in all the years had dealt gently with 
her. Now, moreover, her house a proved success, her 
daughter growing to a womanhood of brilliant promise, 
and her only son come back to her from England, she 
was completely happy, and, what was more, she was not 
ashamed to show it. 

Janet’s quick ear, however, caught an ominous note 
in the laughter, a note that always went with maternal 
teasing. 

“ What now? ” she demanded, seizing her mother 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


183 


by the chin and gazing steadily into her eyes. “ Out 
with it.” 

“ With what? ” 

“ Your iniquity. You are planning something sinful, 
Mummy. I know that laugh of yours too well; it always 
means mischief. ’Fess up.” 

“ Don’t choke me, then. Else, I can’t tell you.” 
Mrs. Leslie settled her collar with one hand, while she 
slid the other one about her daughter’s waist. “ I 
really think, if the boys come, I’ll have a little supper 
party for you and Ronald, Janet. It will seem quite 
like the old times at home. Of course, we want Amy, 
and we can’t help having Lord Axmuthy. Besides — ” 

“ Well? ” Janet urged her past the pause. 

“ Then, just to balance up the table properly, I think 
I shall ask Phyllis to come down.” 

“ Phil! ” Janet nearly tumbled off the chair arm, 
so great was her surprise. “ Phil Stayre! Mummy 
Leslie, do you wot what you are doing? ” 

“ I think so, Janet.” Mrs. Leslie’s face never lost 
its smile. “ She knows them all a little; it would be a 
compliment to Sidneyjto ask her. Besides, Janet, 
Phyllis needs to get an invitation now and then. It 
will give her a little more self-confidence.” 

“ Self-confidence! ” Janet gasped. “ Do you think 
Phil Stayre ever has the slightest doubt of her ability 
to — to entertain King Edward? ” Then the question, 
begun in earnest, lost itself in a little chuckle of pure 
fun. “ I imagine she would entertain him, too, once 
she got about it,” Janet added. Then she returned to 


184 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


the charge. “ What makes you think Phil lacks self- 
confidence? " 

“ Because she tries so hard to cover up the fact / 7 
Mrs. Leslie answered. “ She has won, and deserved, 
the reputation of an ugly duckling, and now she goes 
on living up to it, because she doesn't dare let anybody 
know how it hurts her. The best thing in the world 
for Phyllis would be to wake up, some fine morning, 
and find out she was famous." 

“ It would make her unendurable," Janet predicted. 

But Mrs. Leslie shook her head. 

“ Phyllis is like a good many other girls," she told her 
daughter. “ She will live up to almost any reputation 
that she happens to get. A certain amount of spoiling 
is good for everybody, I believe. Therefore," the arm 
about Janet's waist tightened just a little; “ I am 
going to ask Phyllis to our supper; and, what's more, 
I'm going to put her next to Ronald at the table." 

“ Poor old Ronald! " Janet protested, as she rose to 
go. “ I hope you’ll put Amy on the other side, then. 
Time for work, Mummy," she added, as she bent to 
kiss her mother. “ Never mind, though. Next year 
at this time, I sha'n't have a thing to do but talk." 

“ Are you sorry, Janet? " her mother asked her, a 
little fearful as to what would be the answer. 

The answer came without an instant's hesitation. 

“ Yes, and no, Mummy. Yes, sorry because I have 
enjoyed it here and shall hate the feeling that it's going 
on without me. No, because the stopping will bring 
me so much nearer my real work. You know I started 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


185 


out for just one thing: to finish up the work my father 
left behind. Else, do you suppose Fd have taken all 
this,” her gesture explained her swift, earnest words; 
“ all this out of you and Ronald? My only hope is 
that, some day, I can prove to you I have deserved it 
all.” Then, already half ashamed of the momentary 
emotion which had broken down her usual reserve, 
she once more kissed her mother, this time quite silently, 
and went away out of the room and down the stairs. 

And Mrs. Leslie, looking after her, acknowledged to 
herself that she was satisfied with what the college life 
had done for her young daughter. Janet never would 
be popular; probably she never would be prominent 
among the girls of her own class. Nevertheless, she was 
more patient, broader-minded and infinitely more 
gracious than she had been at the start. Of her honour 
and her intellect, there had never been a question. 

Just one week later, Mrs. Leslie had her supper party; 
and Janet, flanked on either hand by Jack and Rob, 
could not find it in her heart to grudge to Phyllis the 
slender pleasure she appeared to find in the merry little 
function. To be sure, in her heart of hearts Phyllis 
had been overjoyed to find her freshman self included 
in the senior revel. She showed her joy but scantily, 
however; but, although she did her level best to main- 
tain the impression that she accepted the invitation 
solely out of regard to Mrs. Leslie's happiness, she was 
quite unable to keep up her gruff condescension to the 
end. It was impossible for even Phyllis not to laugh 
at some of the nonsense the boys tossed back and forth 


186 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


between themselves, not to enjoy some of the chaff 
aimed at the other girls, not to have a sense of gratified 
vanity when she discovered that her hair, arranged by 
Day's clever hands, was patterned after that of Amy, 
and, furthermore, was more abundant, that the slip 
for her best muslin gown matched to a shade the decora- 
tions of the table, decorations which Mrs. Leslie, knowing 
full well the slenderness of Phyllis's wardrobe, had chosen 
to that very end. 

Moreover, she had liked her seat, between Mrs. Leslie 
and Ronald, and with Day across the table to send her 
a little word every now and then. Ronald, instructed 
in the part he was to play, after one pathetic glance 
towards Amy, had manfully devoted himself to the en- 
tertainment of his dour young neighbour. So skillfully 
had he managed it, so good was he to look at, and so 
unwonted in the life of Phyllis was his little air of eager 
interest in her concerns that the girl forgot herself com- 
pletely. By the time that the supper was half over, 
she was talking with a frank intelligence and ease which 
caused her sister, farther down the table, to forget her 
interest in Jack and turn to listen with a pride which 
was comically manifest to all the others, looking on. 

Janet was in her glory, too, her brown eyes gleaming 
with mirth and her cheeks flushed pink with excite- 
ment, pink as her silken bridesmaid gown which she 
had donned in honour of the great event. Between her- 
self and Rob the fun was ceaseless, ceaseless the sparring 
and the merry byplay of look and gesture which eked 
out the spoken word, ceaseless the hilarious reminis- 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


187 


cence. Now and then it overflowed to take in Jack and 
Sidney; now and then it caught Ronald in its tide, or 
else swept completely around the table to break in upon 
Day’s quiet talk with Mrs. Leslie, quite at the other 
end. At such instants, Mrs. Leslie lifted her head to 
look across the group of happy faces. Then she smiled 
contentedly to herself. Her little supper was proving 
an unalloyed success, it seemed to her. There were but 
two quiet spots at the table, both unexpected, neither 
of them causing her much anxiety. Lord Axmuthy, 
at Day’s right hand, was bolting his food in a nervous 
silence, keeping, the while, a wary eye on Phyllis, as 
if fearful lest she take summary vengeance on him 
for some untimely word. Across the table beside Ron- 
ald, Amy Pope was unaccountably quiet. However, 
Ronald had told her of the little plot regarding Phyllis, 
and Rob, at Amy’s other hand, was kept busy an- 
swering Janet’s sallies. Mrs. Leslie, then, noting the 
girl’s unwonted stillness, set it down as the result of 
chance, and not of any great account. 

Rob Argyle noticed it, too, however, noticed it not 
only at the table, but later on, when they all sat grouped 
around the open fire in the white-panelled living-room 
across the hall. It was not like Amy Pope to be so pen- 
sive, he told himself; not like her in the least to fail 
to rally and fling back the chaff he turned upon her. 
Plainly she was not to be aroused in any such way as 
this. Plainly something or other was amiss with her. 
Under cover of his talk with Sidney, Rob watched the 
girl with kindly eyes. Then, with a plea about the hot- 


188 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


ness of the hickory logs, he pushed aside his chair and 
went to join her in her comer. 

Later on, when he and Jack were in their room at the 
Inn, he fell to wondering audibly about the matter. 

“ It isn't like her to be so quiet," he said, after he had 
summed up the evening’s events and dwelt a little upon 
Amy’s unusual silence. “ She generally can be counted 
on to hold her own. In fact, I never knew her miss it 
before. Something or other must be wrong. I say, 
Jack,’’ he looked over at his friend with steady, true 
blue eyes; “ what do you suppose the trouble is? ’’ 

There was a little bit of silence. Then Jack an- 
swered. 

“ Rob, I wish I knew,’’ he said, and, as he spoke, his 
own keen eyes were clouded. 


CHAPTER FOURTEEN 


LL faculty,” as she spoke, Day tentatively stuck 



in a hairpin, lifted her brows inquiringly, then 
drove the hairpin home. “ All faculty,” she iterated 
then; “ is divided into two parts: those who shake 
their forefingers at you, and those who poke their fists 
into their pockets. Personally, I prefer the latter. They 
are less self-conscious.” 

“ Day,” Sidney spoke from the bed where she had 
thrown herself down to rest after a stormy class meeting 
where, by the time the questions involved had been 
laid upon the table, Sidney had reached the point of 
wishing she could lay herself beside them; “ according 
to your maturer notions, how much do the faculty 
really count up here? ” 

Day turned from the mirror where she was completing 
the process of beautifying herself for dinner. 

“ To themselves, or to us? ” she inquired composedly. 

“ Both. Either.” 

“ Lots to themselves and, I suppose, to each other.” 
Day faced back again and went on with the beautifying 
process at her leisure. “ To us — Well, to put it very 
courteously, not quite so much as they congratulate 
themselves they do. When I was a callow freshman, 
I used to think of them as sitting on a peak of high 


190 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


Olympus, each one armed with a vast wooden spoon 
and stirring up the senior intellect. We didn’t get 
any of the stirring. I supposed then it was because 
we were too young. But now — Are the green beads 
or the pendant prettier with this gown? ” 

“The beads, you thing of vanity! They match. 
But what about now? ” 

With leisurely hands, Day clasped the beads about 
her neck. Then she smiled down at Sidney. 

“ Like all perspectives, it has moved along,” she said. 
“ They still keep up a mighty stirring with their wooden 
spoons; but, as long as we seniors don’t appear to feel 
it, I have come to the conclusion that they must be 
stirring up each other. Sidney Stayre,” she added, with 
a sudden change of tone; “ I sometimes actually be- 
lieve that, granted the wisdom and the spirit of holiness 
within the President, we girls could almost educate 
ourselves.” 

Sidney yawned. 

“ Day, dhat’s heresy. Also nonsense.” 

“ I am not so sure,” Day answered wilfully. “ Of 
course, it depends a little, though, on what you mean 
by education. If you want to teach, or get Ph. D.’s and 
things like that, then I suppose the faculty are bound 
to be of some use. For those of us that are just up here, 
learning how to live, though — Really, there’s more 
use in one of Mother Leslie’s little table talks than in a 
dozen lectures. Mrs. Pope was another. She stirred 
us up, and made us do any amount of thinking.” 

“ So does any mother that’s worth the having,” 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


191 


Sidney made idle comment, for she was a good deal too 
tired, that afternoon, to discuss anything very pro- 
foundly. 

Day, on the other hand, fresh from the class meeting 
where she had had all of the fun of argument and none 
of the responsibility, was in a mood for philosophi- 
cal discussion. Accordingly, she proceeded with her 
theme. 

“ Look at Amy Pope herself,” she was beginning, when 
a sudden knock smote upon the door. Day abandoned 
her argument hastily, and assumed the duties of hostess. 
“ Come in,” she said. 

The door opened, and Phyllis stalked across the thresh- 
old. From her manner of repressed excitement, it was 
plain that she had tidings to impart. 

“ Where is Sidney? ” she demanded. 

Day pointed to the bed. 

“ Over there.” 

“ Sick? ” 

Sidney stuck up her head from among the parti- 
coloured pillows. 

“ No; only dead tired with the vagaries of my be- 
loved class,” she answered. “ Phil, take an older 
sister’s advice, and never run for senior president.” 

“ I'm not likely to be asked, and you know you love 
it,” Phyllis made uncompromising answer. “If you 
don’t like it, you’re perfectly able to resign.” 

“ My duty to my class,” Sidney murmured, with mock 
sanctity. 

“ Fudge! ” Phyllis crossed the room and took pos- 


192 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


session of the most uneasy chair the room afforded. 
“ What are you girls doing? ” 

“ I was dressing.” Day pirouetted about the room, 
her arms lifted to exhibit her sleeves for inspection. 
“ Don’t I look nice? And Sidney, I devoutly hope,” she 
added pointedly; “ is just about to dress.” 

Sidney nuzzled her head down among the pillows. 

“ Time enough,” she protested. “ I tell you I am 
weary.” 

Phyllis stiffened herself in her chair. 

“ Too weary to hear some news? ” she queried 
brusquely. 

“ Not if it’s good news, or else exciting,” Sidney 
answered, with a smothered yawn. 

Phyllis glanced across at the table, as if taking in- 
ventory of its contents. Apparently satisfied at what 
she did not see, she turned back again to Sidney. 

“ It is good for somebody,” she said guardedly; “ and 
— for that somebody, I shouldn’t wonder if it was a 
little bit exciting.” 

“ Go ahead, then,” Sidney ordered her colloquially. 

Phyllis did go ahead, but deviously and by means 
of another question. 

“ Seen the Monthly ? ” she inquired. 

“ No; not yet. Has ours come, Day? ” 

“ I haven’t seen it,” Day made nonchalant answer, 
for now she knew what was coming, although not the 
whole of it. 

Phyllis seemed loath to break the pause, and Sidney 
stirred her with a question. 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


193 


“ What of the Monthly, Phil? ” 

Phyllis laid a row of box-plaits in the skirt of her 
brown frock. Then she smoothed down her hair. Then 
she cleared her throat. 

“ Nothing, only Fve got a story in it,” she said curtly. 

“ Phil Stayre! ” With a bounce, Sidney was off the 
bed, across the room and on her sister’s neck, for Janet 
and Day had kept their secret well, and Phyllis’s sur- 
prise was perfect. “ Phil, you darling! ” 

Phyllis submitted to the hugging with a fair amount 
of grace; but at the epithet she made swift rebellion. 

“ I’m no especial darling, Sidney; and it’s a very 
disagreeable story. At least, I meant it to be.” 

Sidney gave one final hug which wellnigh stopped her 
sister’s breath for ever. 

“ Oh, Phil, I am so proud!” she said, between the 
hugs. 

“ There’s nothing for you to be proud of, Sidney. I 
wrote it, and they took it and put it in. That’s all 
there is about it.” 

“ But I am proud, Phil,” Sidney protested. “ Any 
girl would be, to have her sister do a thing like that. 
Day, where do you suppose our Monthly is? ” 

“ Under the bed,” Day answered tranquilly. 

“ The — bed? ” 

“ Yes, mine. I told Janet to put it there, before I 
saw it at all. I didn’t want to fib too badly, and we 
both were bound that Phil should tell you, herself.” 

“ You knew it, then, both of you? ” Sidney looked up 
sharply. 


194 


SIDNEY : HER SENIOR YEAR 


Phyllis took it on herself to do the answering. 

“ Janet’s an editor/’ she said indifferently. “ As for 
Day,” her voice changed abruptly, grew more gentle; 
“ I’m not sure I ever should have done it, if it hadn’t 
been for her.” 

Day stooped suddenly to smooth out the rug at her 
feet, for she was loath to have even Sidney’s friendly 
eyes discover the two hot tears that came into her 
own eyes, as she listened to the curt, honest words of 
Phyllis. Later, she wondered a little if all her college 
life would not have been well worth the while, for the 
sake of that one ungracious recognition of her friendly 
zeal. 

Sidney, meanwhile, had fallen on all fours and was half 
buried from sight beneath the bed. 

“ You may as well save your energy, Sidney. I have 
a copy here,” Phyllis advised her, still a little curtly. 
Then she added, with apparent carelessness, “ They’ve 
given me first place.” 

This time, Day fell upon her. 

“ Phil! You blessed old thing! How splendid! ” 

Phyllis tried her level best to look very bored; she 
only succeeded, however, in looking very self-con- 
scious. 

“ You needn’t make such a fuss as that over it,” she 
told them. “ I’ve something a good deal more exciting 
than that to tell you.” 

“ Go on ! ” Day, heedless of her gown, plumped herself 
on the floor at the feet of Phyllis, and turned to face her 
expectantly. 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


195 


Once more Phyllis made a futile effort after noncha- 
lance. 

“ It’s not so much, perhaps, after all; only I was 
rather pleased,” she modified her previous words. “ I 
was passing the Hatfield just now, and She — ” there 
was no especial need for Phyllis to add the name, sup- 
plied equally by tone and context; “ called me in and 
congratulated me.” 

“ What did she say? ” Sidney demanded hungrily. 

And the verdict Phyllis quoted would not have ap- 
peared as satisfactory to a lay outsider as to the owner 
of literary aspirations. 

“ She said it was the roughest thing she ever saw, 
bald and crude and careless, but she told me to go on 
and do another, and then, as soon as I had learned 
to know a little more, to do a whole lot of others. I’ve 
got to learn to live like a sane woman, before I can 
begin to be a writer; but she’s sure the time will come 
when, if I want, I can be.” 

The last words came tumbling out of Phyllis’s mouth 
in a chaotic torrent; but Sidney’s pride in her sister, 
her real love, supplied the clue to their meaning. Dur- 
ing a little pause, she stood at the side of Phyllis’s chair, 
smoothing the brown stuff shoulder with fingers that 
itched to caress something a little bit more personal. 
Day, meanwhile, still sitting on the floor with her hands 
clasped about her knees, beamed up at them both con- 
tentedly. To her mind, now that the first, worst step 
was taken, the future of Phyllis was assured. Even so 
slight a matter as a single story could not fail to bring 


196 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


to the girl some sort of recognition; and Day shared 
Mrs. Leslie’s belief that recognition was the thing that 
Phyllis Stayre most needed, needed no less because 
she would have died a dozen deaths rather than take 
one single step directly to attain it. 

Sidney’s hand fell to her side at last, and she dropped 
down beside Day, with a happy little sigh. 

“ Won’t father and mother be delighted!” she said 
slowly. 

Day turned to face her with a smile. 

“ Sidney,” she said; “ I verily believe you care more 
about this than you did for being president.” 

And Sidney answered without hesitation, — 

“ Of course, Day. This counts for ever and ever so 
much more. That came just because I could get on 
with a lot of girls; but this is something out of Phil’s 
very self.” 

Day, however, in her secret heart, refused to accept 
the nice discrimination. 

“ I think,” Phyllis announced, after a short pause; 
“ if it won’t seem too conceited, I’ll send a copy down 
to Wade.” 

“ Of course,” Sidney assented promptly. “ It would 
be a shame not to. He will be ever so proud, and Irene 
can tell him what the Monthly really stands for.” 

“ And,” Phyllis went on, heedless of the interruption; 
“ I think perhaps I’ll send another one to Jack Blan- 
chard.” 

“ Why Jack especially? ” Sidney asked her. 

Phyllis hesitated, blushed to the rims of her great 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


197 


spectacles, divested now of their black yarn pads. 
It was not easy for her to speak out before two hearers 
even when one was Sidney and the other one was Day. 
None the less, an unwonted mood of confidential frank- 
ness lay upon her. 

“ Because,” she blurted out at last; “ I told Jack, 
ever so long ago, that time he was burned, you 
know? ” She paused and lifted her eyes to make sure 
that the memory lasted for the others as well as for 
herself. 

“ Yes.” Day nodded. “ Well? ” 

“ Told him I’d make sure that some day he’d say it 
had been worth his while,” Phyllis continued, with a 
hasty effort to slur over any sentimental meaning 
of the phrase. “ If I send him down the story, it may 
just remind him of the promise; that’s all.” 

And then, for just a little while, silence descended 
upon the room. 

It was now the first of March, and the Easter holidays 
were in sight. Winter was breaking fast. Snow and 
ice were giving place to much rain and to bottomless 
mud. Clouds lay thick upon the two little mountains 
at the south of the town, and the meadows were a lake 
grown from the river’s overflow, a lake filled with swirl- 
ing eddies and fringed with logs and rubbish which 
gathered thickly in the stagnant backwaters below the 
bluff that edged the town. The season was, all things 
considered, the most unlovely one of all the circling 
year. Nevertheless, the seniors clung lovingly to each 
passing day. The completion of their passing would 


198 


SIDNEY : HER SENIOR YEAR 


bring Easter and the holidays. That, in its turn, 
would be followed by the coming of the summer term, 
loveliest of all terms to the under classes, saddest of 
all to seniors for whom the end is then almost in 
sight. 

Even into the term preceding, a tinge of sadness had 
crept backward. Every now and then, some minor 
event pointed mercilessly forward to those final days 
in June. Every now and then, some college function 
marked itself in plain italics as being the last time for 
them. Next year, who would stand in the front left-hand 
corner of the gymnasium floor for rally? Next year, 
who would — dozens and dozens of things? Forgetful 
of the fact that their turn must so soon follow, the seniors, 
in those days of breaking winter, were prone to bend 
their envious gaze upon the juniors. For them, at least, 
the fun was only fun, and quite unmingled with fore- 
boding. 

And yet, even in those latter days of winter with the 
end almost in sight, the senior life was by no means all 
keyed to a melancholy minor. There were absorbing 
interests of every sort and description; days of excite- 
ment when the routine of the college almost lost its 
significance beneath the buzz of talk which heralded 
some new sensation, a buzz which subsided always as 
suddenly as it had arisen; days when the vast machine 
rolled smoothly onward, frictionless and never mightier 
than in its greatest stillness. And there were other 
days, holidays, mid-years and Rally Day, and that other 
day, unnoticed by the faculty, when the college arrays 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


199 


itself in green and yellow and, between lectures and 
beforehand, sallies forth to the fray: there were these 
other days when the whole place was given up to tra- 
ditional and lawful revelry. There are suppers, too, 
varying in formality from impromptu spreads to full- 
dress functions down at the Copper Kettle or the Rose 
Tree Inn. There are the division plays, when guests 
put on their frilly frocks and go to wake the echoes 
of the Student Building with their well-merited applause. 
There has been skating down in Paradise, and an occa- 
sional mild effort upon snow shoes. There is an occa- 
sional trip to Springfield, too; and there is the unending 
tide of petty hospitalities which go on among the girls 
and from house to house. Under no conditions can the 
college life be termed monotonous, unless a girl makes 
wilful effort to convert herself into the likeness of a 
hermit crab. 

Since mid-years, Day and Sidney and even Amy Pope 
had flung themselves headlong into the class tide. Other 
friends would last for other years. The class, unbroken 
and united in its interests, was now at best a thing of 
months. They would make the very most, then, of 
those months. Janet, perforce, yvas giving a more di- 
vided allegiance to the spirit of her class. Not that she 
was the less loyal to its true traditions; but, of necessity, 
she felt the disturbing presence of her brother, and even, 
to a less degree, of her brother's eccentric employer, Lord 
Axmuthy. Ronald, by the kindness of his lordship, 
was lingering there in the staid old town until her com- 
mencement should be over. To a stranger and an alien, 


200 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


like either one of the two boys, resources for entertain- 
ment were but few. Accordingly, Janet gave to them 
what spare hours she could, to the one by reason of her 
gratitude for his continued kindness to her brother, 
to the other from sheer pleasure in his presence. And 
with Ronald, Amy Pope, oftenest of any of the girls, 
came to Janet's aid. 

To Janet, watching, anxious for Ronald's content 
and entertainment, it seemed that Amy Pope was mar- 
vellously unselfish in those winter days. Janet's shrewd 
young brain held few illusions. She was quite well 
aware that Amy never had cared enthusiastically for 
herself. She was also well aware that Amy, in these 
latter days, was busy even to the point of distraction. 
The play had ceased to be a future plan and had 
become a present fact. Swiftly and impartially as she 
was able, Amy was busy nowadays in sorting out the 
candidates for parts, preparatory to their final trials by 
the coach. Her days were spent in interviews, not all 
of them too pleasant; she went to bed at night, a 
pencil and a pad of paper underneath her pillow. 
She arose at dawn to tumble headlong into her 
clothes and dash off, breakfastless, in search of some 
aspirant for dramatic fame who had eluded her, the day 
before. And, with all this, the stem necessity of her 
position entailed a due attention to her lectures; a 
loyalty to her house and class demanded of her a due 
measure of time for a round dozen of other interests 
totally disconnected with dramatics. In all truth, 
the life of a senior celebrity, as the year draws to its 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


201 


climax, lacks somewhat upon the score of restful- 
ness. 

Under all these conditions, it seemed to Janet Leslie 
little short of the marvellous that Amy Pope should have 
left over any odds and ends of time for Ronald. N e verthe- 
less, in some way best known to herself, the girl achieved 
it, achieved it when his older friends, Sidney and Day 
Argyle, told him quite frankly that their hours were full 
to overflowing, that they must wait until their Easter 
holidays when they all would be together in New York, to 
make up their arrears of conversation. Amy, on the 
other hand, always contrived to be at home when 
Ronald called; always contrived to be at leisure when 
he demanded a walk, or suggested a wish to take her 
back with him for a cup of his mother’s tea; always 
contrived, no matter what her worries, to be her frank 
and merry self whenever Ronald Leslie came within 
her sight. And Ronald, appreciating all this to the full, 
did his level best not to abuse his privilege, not to tire 
her out by his insistent demands upon her time. Asked, 
he would have given unhesitating answer that, for one 
occasion that he saw and talked with Amy, he would 
have liked a dozen. And yet they saw each other almost 
daily, meeting upon the street, or inside the campus, or 
by way of Mrs. Leslie for whom Amy Pope had never 
lost her old-time freshman allegiance. 

However, strange to say, in all this time, and by all 
these frequent meetings, any real intimacy between 
Janet and Amy seemed as far off as ever. Accordingly, 
on this same March afternoon of Phyllis’s narration of 


202 SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


her news, it was to the room of Day and Sidney, not of 
Am y Pope, that Janet took herself. She walked more 
rapidly than usual, her chin erect, her brown eyes on 
fire with the importance of her errand. 

“ Come! ” Once more it was Day who called out in 
answer to her knock. 

Janet flung the door open and walked in. Then, 
just inside the threshold, she halted to survey the group 
before her: Phyllis enthroned upon a chair, with Day 
and Sidney sitting at her feet. 

“ Well! ” she said. “ What’s going on here? A love 
feast? ” 

Sidney looked up, her gray eyes still alight with pride. 

“ We’re rejoicing over Phil,” she said. 

Janet nodded. 

“ Splendid; isn’t it? I am so glad about it that I 
don’t half know what to say. Keep it up, Phyllis. 
You’ve the stuff in you.” Then she turned back to her 
two classmates, seated on the floor. “ Are there any 
rejoicings left over to spill on me? ” she demanded 
quaintly. 

“ Yes, oceans.” Sidney caught her by the hand and 
dragged her down into her lap. “ Out with your good 
news, Janet! What is it now? ” 

“ Nothing, only,” even as Phyllis had done, Janet 
sought to tell her tidings nonchalantly; but her voice 
betrayed her, and her eyes, betrayed her sheer, throb- 
bing joy in her own bit of glorious news; “ only — 
I’m Puck” 

“ Janet! ” 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


203 


And then, in their delight, they fell upon her and made 
much of her to their hearts’ content. After all said and 
done, it is the old, old friend and her well-earned glories 
that count the most. 


CHAPTER FIFTEEN 


“ X>UT don’t you know, now honestly? ” Rob burst 

JLJ out. 

The words might have answered to Jack’s final phrase, 
spoken the night of Mrs. Leslie’s supper party. As a 
matter of fact, however, they were uttered late on Easter 
eve, when the two friends had gone upstairs after an 
evening spent at the Wade Winthrops’. 

“ Come in,” Rob had said hospitably, as he halted on 
the threshold of his room, the original and becoming 
blue of whose decorations had long since lost itself 
beneath a wealth of crimson banners and plump silk 
sofa pillows. 

Jack had yawned and demurred a little. 

“ It must be all hours of the night.” 

“ It’s not; it’s to-morrow morning. The mischief is 
already done. You may as well come inside and have a 
gossip.” 

“ Disturb somebody.” 

“ Disturb the great-grandmother of the seven sleep- 
ers! Besides, there isn’t anybody else on our side of the 
house but Leslie, and he isrr’t given to being wakeful. 
I know; because I can check him up by his snores. I 
always could, away back in Quebec.” 

Jack flung himself into a great arm chair. 


SIDNEY : HER SENIOR YEAR 


205 


11 You don’t mean that that thing of beauty sleeps 
out loud? ” he questioned. 

Rob chuckled. 

“ They are the sort that always do. I’m surprised, 
Jack, that such a fact escaped your notice, after all your 
experience of the dormant public.” 

Jack shook his head. 

“ It generally was the little fat ones who made the 
worst disturbance. The lean giants like Leslie were 
immune, as a rule. Rob, I can’t seem to get on with 
Leslie? ” 

“ Because he snores? ” Rob queried flippantly, while 
he slid out of his dinner coat and dived into his closet 
in search of something softer to replace it. “ He’s 
good, Jack, all good. In fact, I sometimes think he is 
a lot too good for us.” 

Jack dismissed that phase of the question. 

“ I never saw a brother and sister so totally unlike,” 
he remarked at the visible portion of Rob’s shoulder 
blades. “ He’s as smooth and suave as she is wilful.” 

“ She meaning Janet? ” Rob reappeared, his house- 
coat in his hand. “ For my part,” he made a little grim- 
ace at some recollection bom of the evening’s conversa- 
tion; “ I consider Janet Leslie the most wontful person 
that I ever knew.” 

Jack laughed. 

“ Her wrath is like the lightning, Rob. One never 
knows where it will strike next.” 

“ Or when,” Rob added ruefully. “ I found that out, 
some time ago; and, methinks, you’ve had a sample 


206 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


package of it, too. To-night, though, I meant to be 
extra good, for Day had been lecturing me on my duties 
to my guests.” 

“ Yours? They’re hers,” Jack said flatly. 

“ Mine by courtesy, as long as it’s all in the family. 
Besides, Ronald and I were supposed to be good friends, 
in the dear old days in Louis Street.” 

“ Were you? ” Jack questioned keenly. 

“We -el, mm! That depends,” Rob gave evasive 
answer. “ Day always cared for him more than I did.” 

Jack bent forward to stare at a microscopic cut in his 
left thumb. 

“ And does now? ” he inquired, without looking up. 

Rob laughed. 

“ Bet you! ” he said profanely. Then, without warn- 
ing, he shifted the talk. “ Jack,” he asked, and Jack, 
had he been looking up, would have noted the steady 
gaze of Rob’s blue eyes whence, for the instant, the fun 
had died away; “ what is the row between you and Amy 
Pope? ” 

The suddenness of the question took Jack completely 
off his guard. Nevertheless, he rallied swiftly, swiftly 
fenced. 

“Row, Rob?” 

“Yes, row,” Rob persisted. “ Something has gone 
wrong between you. You used to be all sorts of 
friends.” 

“ Aren’t we now? ” Jack queried, with a smile. 

“ Not on your life. You don’t fight; but neither do 
you chum,” Rob told him bluntly. 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


207 


The smile still curved Jack’s thin, firm lips, as he an- 
swered, — 

“ I don’t know any reason that we shouldn’t.” 

But the smile was matched by no gleam from the 
steady eyes above. 

And then it was that Rob, watching his old friend 
closely, noting the fixed smile, and the grave and honest 
eyes, had burst out with the question which he so often 
had longed to ask, the question which, he knew full 
well, Jack Blanchard would in all probability be the last 
man in the world to answer. 

None the less, he did answer it; and, at the finish, 
Rob’s blue eyes were as grave as were the level brown 
ones, now looking into his without a hint of reservation. 

“ I don’t see what else you could have done,” he said 
slowly, after Jack had ended speaking. 

“ I didn’t, myself,” Jack made thoughtful answer. 
“ There was just the thin little edge of a danger. I sup- 
pose I was an utter cad to think of it, and a worse one 
to speak of it to you. However, I have kept still about 
it for a good while, and I do generally end by telling you 
most things.” 

For a moment, Rob’s muscular fist lay on Jack’s 
fingers, in token that he understood. Then, — 

“ About the rest,” he added; “ one never can count 
too much on the next man’s feelings; but my advice 
to you is to go in and win.” 

“ And, if I lose? ” 

“ You’ll lose,” Rob assured him practically. 

“ That, and most other things at the same time.” 


208 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


“ Not necessarily.” 

“ The good of them, though,” Jack persisted gravely. 
Then he lifted his eyes once more to rest them on the 
face of his best, his well-tried friend. “ Rob Argyle,” he 
spoke with sudden energy; “ what do you think I have 
been working for, all these past months? ” 

Manlike though he was, virile in every thread of his 
young nature, Rob’s smile was very sweet, as he made 
slow answer, — 

“ The thing you’re going to get in the long run, old 
man. At least, I hope so.” 

After the stress and strain of senior year, the Easter 
holidays were proving a welcome interlude. Irene 
Winthrop had been mainly responsible for the way in 
which they were being spent. Irene had been through 
it all, two years before; she knew quite well that much 
of the summer term’s enjoyment would depend upon the 
total break at Easter. Accordingly, as soon as she found 
out that the Leslies were to be the Argyles’ guests, she 
had sent notes to Amy Pope and Paul Addison, begging 
them to come down to New York, partly to see her 
housekeeping in her new home, partly that, all together 
once more, they might renew some of the old associa- 
tions of the preceding summer. 

Paul and Amy, nothing loath, had accepted Irene’s 
invitation, the one by telegram, the other in a special- 
delivery letter. Two days later, they arrived by the 
same train, squabbling hilariously, according to their 
wonted fashion, as they came. Whatever the months 
might have wrought by way of change among the others, 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


209 


it was plain to Irene, looking on, that the old bond be- 
tween Paul and Amy had held good, unchanged and still 
unbroken. 

Next morning, however, Paul had a surprise in waiting 
for Irene. 

“ I say, step-sister-in-law-as-is,” he observed, strolling 
in upon her at her desk, where she sat answering a dozen 
notes; “ where in your plans does Phil come in? ” 

“ Phil? ” 

“ Yes, Phil. I want her about to play with me, when 
Amy is busy.” 

“ But she doesn’t belong to the old clan, Paul,” 
Irene remonstrated. 

“ Mayhaps. In that case, old clan be hanged! ” he 
observed ungratefully. “ Besides, we’re one short, 
anyway, with Amy Browne in London. Meanwhile, I 
want Phil to play with, as I told you.” 

“ Phil doesn’t play; she is a good deal too strenuous 
for that.” 

“I’ll teach her, then.” Paul stuck his fists into his 
pockets. “ I can teach a pink gorilla how to gambol, 
once I set about it.” 

“ What about Amy? ” Irene reminded him. “ I 
brought you down here to play with her and keep her 
from getting bored.” 

“ Amy has Ronald, alack! Mighty poor taste on her 
part to strain the muscles of her neck, looking up at that 
clothes pole. However, step-sister-in-law, that’s nothing 
to the point. I want Phil. I like her; she isn’t cloying 
with her sweet little ways, and she sets the rafters to 


210 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


jingling when she walks across the room. Nevertheless, 
I like her. She’s as refreshing as an ice-locked tub in 
January.” 

And so it came to pass that Phyllis was included in a 
good many of their plans. 

Quite prominent among these plans had been Irene’s 
little dinner, given on Easter eve. The next week, she 
was well aware, the Argyles and their guests would be 
caught in the whirl of after-Easter gayeties. It was best, 
all things considered, to serve her dinner as a sort of 
Lenten penance. She had made her plans accordingly; 
but the penance had been such an absolute success that 
it had been prolonged until Lent itself was over. 

At one point only had Irene’s plans barely escaped 
a wreck. According to her observations made the pre- 
ceding summer, coupled with the somewhat hazy im- 
pression she had gained at the time of her own wedding, 
Irene, quite as a matter of course, had given Jack the 
place next Amy Pope. She had counted upon those 
two to form a focus for all the talk and fun of the entire 
table. To her intense surprise, the fun came only out of 
Rob and Sidney. Jack was very quiet, and Amy was 
wellnigh dumb. Her dumbness, it was plain, came from 
no mood of waywardness, however. The girl had never 
been gentler than she was, that night at table, had never 
been more girlishly sweet than in her unwonted quiet. 
She gave to Jack her full attention, as long as they sat 
together at the table; she showed to him a pretty defer- 
ence, smiled at his jokes and listened to his stories. Now 
and then she lifted her eyes to his, and their expression 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


211 


was a little bit appealing, very full of question; but 
the old froth and sparkle were completely gone. 

If Jack noticed it, or missed it, he gave no sign. He 
merely talked on, in his old, accustomed friendly way, 
only a little bit more gravely. A strangej, looking on, 
would have set them down as mere acquaintances who 
had met but twice or thrice before, and then under the 
most depressing circumstances. Irene was plainly 
mystified, rather annoyed; but Rob Argyle, across the 
table, looked into his friend’s brown eyes and read there 
a hint of regretful sorrow which made him manifestly 
anxious. To conceal his anxiety, however, as well as 
to veil Jack’s obvious discomfort, Rob flung himself into 
the spirit of the occasion as Irene had planned it, not 
only flung himself, but dragged Sidney in headlong after 
him, while by degrees he swept the table with them into 
a mood of mirth and held them there until Amy’s dumb 
gentleness and Jack’s discomfort had dropped completely 
out of sight. 

Later, when they left the table, Rob took it upon his 
own broad shoulders to make the evening an unqualified 
success. With that end in view, he had gone limping 
to and fro across Irene’s small drawing-room, breaking 
up the groups as fast as they were formed, rearranging 
them to his liking, only to stir them up again, and leaving 
behind him a train of merry nonsense that once for all 
rendered dumb gentleness an absolute impossibility. 
Paul, never dense, was not slow to catch the meaning 
of Rob’s mood, and proved an able second. By the time 
the evening was well under way, Irene had the satis- 


212 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


faction of feeling the danger point was in the past. Even 
the causes of the danger appeared to have repented of 
their evil ways. Amy, as much of the time as Rob would 
leave her in peace, was now quite absorbed in Ronald 
Leslie, plying the dignified Canadian with jokes and 
chatter which had reacted on herself until she seemed 
once more the saucy, independent Amy whom they all 
knew and liked so well. Jack, meanwhile, after a glance 
at Day, engrossed in grave discussion with Wade Win- 
throp, had betaken himself in search of Janet Leslie. 

In fact, during those Easter holidays, Jack had de- 
veloped a habit of taking himself in search of Janet. 
As guest of the house which he long since had learned 
to consider home, she was bound to make some slight 
demands upon his attention and his time. Moreover, 
as a rule, Janet was in her best, her sweetest mood just 
then. Now and then she sparred with Rob a little bit 
too seriously for the comfort of the onlookers; now and 
then she turned on Day a little sharply. For the most 
part, however, she sheathed her claws and offered to all 
comers the friendly paw of a gentle pussy-cat. Jack, 
strangely quiet in those Easter holidays, was finding 
Janet his best comrade. 

She was as downright as Amy, but far more uncom- 
promising. She allowed it to be seen quite plainly by 
her companion of the moment that he was only for the 
moment, only an incident quite subordinate to the main 
ends and aims of her existence. However, at her best, 
Janet was not lacking in girlish charm. She had a 
certain wit, a certain brilliancy at times that was danger- 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


213 


ously near to beauty. Her charm was in no way dimin- 
ished by her little air of being quite sufficient unto her- 
self. Instinctively her companion of the moment realized 
that he must do his best to render himself a necessity 
to her complete content. Jack Blanchard was no ex- 
ception to the rule. It would have given him an honest 
pleasure to feel that Janet Leslie liked him, depended 
on him, asked his judgment. Just once or twice, early 
in their acquaintance, they had seemed to be nearing 
this relation. Then had come the friction and the open 
strife of the preceding summer; and, since that time, 
Jack had accepted the apparent peace between them 
as being the merest truce, a truce liable to be broken 
at any instant. Now, to his extreme surprise, he was 
discovering in the present Janet more than a trace of 
his old-time girl friend, docile and ready to do her share 
to please. 

On this account, Jack had found it the more easy to 
drop into the habit of seeking Janet, every now and 
then, for a little talk. She was a good talker, too; 
but a far better listener. Before he was quite aware of 
the fact, Jack caught the trick of talking to her frankly 
of himself, of his present interests, even of that past life 
which had been a sealed book between them. Janet 
heard him out with an intent consideration of his facts 
and of his point of view. In the end, moreover, she came 
to share his point of view far more than, a year ago, 
she would have deemed possible. The past year had 
broadened Janet Leslie, not only with its struggle and 
its work, but even more by means of its present promise 


214 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


of a little bit of fame. Janet Leslie, the class nonentity 
and grind, was a wholly different person from Janet 
Leslie, the potential Puck. Nowadays, certain elements 
of graciousness befitted her, whereas heretofore they had 
been negligible advantages, like any other misfit cos- 
tume. 

Together, then, she and Jack discussed all things: 
New York and Canada and Smith, discussed the fate 
of railroads and of the senior play. Janet advised 
Jack regarding the furnishings for his new office; Jack 
instructed Janet in military manoeuvres, as manifested 
in the Battle of the Plains, and warned her, out of his 
own practical experience of battlefields, of certain of 
the errors that beset the path of the historian. In spite 
of Jack’s occasional fun and of Janet’s quaint wit, their 
talk was nearly always serious; it held nothing of the 
flashing, teasing merriment that had marked Jack’s 
earlier conversations with Amy Pope. Perhaps he 
found it the more restful, for all that. 

This particular evening at Irene’s had been no excep- 
tion to the rule. Jack and Janet, sitting a little apart 
from the others, had fallen into grave discussion of 
certain absorbing themes quite alien to the gay scene 
around them, alien to their two resplendent selves. 
Jack was as starchy as Janet was frilly, that night; and 
their combined appearance was ludicrously out of keep- 
ing with certain words which they let fall : Forlorn hope , 
shot down, carried to the rear, retreat. Amy, across the 
room with Ronald at her side, paused in the middle of her 
chaff to cast a glance over at the two Canadians, so 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


215 


obviously blind and deaf to all around them. Then 
she flung herself into her talk with Ronald more eagerly 
than ever, while, bit by bit, the scarlet stain of excite- 
ment crept up over her cheeks, and her eyes were blaz- 
ing, as if with the enjoyment of her own wit which 
flashed, brilliant and ceaseless as the summer lightning, 
and, to the girPs great credit, quite as free from doing 
harm. To all seeming, Amy Pope was conscious of but 
one person in the room, that night; that one was Ronald 
Leslie. 

Rob, in the meantime, was making little forays to 
and fro and up and down the room, determined to do 
his best to keep the talk from breaking up into duets. 
With that in mind, he paused a moment beside Jack, 
his hand on his friend's shoulder, but his eyes on Janet. 

“ Would you mind telling, Janet," he queried, when 
they reached a comma; “ whether you are going to 
understudy the Secretary of War; or whether you 
mean to write an army novel? This thirst for gory in- 
formation is a new departure for you; isn't it? " 

Plainly she was displeased by the trivial interruption. 
Nevertheless, she forced herself to laugh up into his 
face. 

“ I always make a point of extracting useful informa- 
tion, whenever it's in reach," she assured him. 

“ You never tried it on me." 

“ I said whenever ," she retorted. 

“ I am at your service. Meanwhile, I want to borrow 
Jack." 

“ What for? " 


216 


SIDNEY : HER SENIOR YEAR 


“ To go play with Phyllis. I’ve talked myself thread- 
bare. She likes Jack, too.” 

“ Then it's time you tried to make her like you,” 
Janet advised him coolly. “ Ought you to go, Jack? 
You’re the forlorn -hope in earnest.” And she dismissed 
him with a merry nod. 

Rob slid into the chair his friend had just left vacant. 

“ Now me,” he said. “ Please sound my seas of 
information, Janet, and haul out a little fish of fact.” 

“ Jack was giving me whales,” she answered rather 
recklessly. “ After that, I am afraid I sha’n’t care for 
minnows.” 

“ Thank you so much! ” Rob’s colour came; but his 
laugh was as jovial as ever. “ Have you been seeing 
much of Phyllis lately, Janet? ” 

Swiftly she caught the point of his apparent discur- 
siveness; and the colour flamed up hotly in her own 
cheeks. She rose to her feet with a little air of decision, 
and stood there for an instant, drawn up to her full 
height and looking down on Rob seemingly from an 
infinite distance. 

“ Not so much as you have,” she made answer then; 
“ but still, enough so that I recognize her manners, 
when I meet them.” Then quietly she turned away, 
leaving Rob sitting there alone, and went to join Irene 
and Paul beside the open fire. 

Amy detached herself from Ronald, at the last, long 
enough to give a mocking smile to Jack Blanchard. 

“ I haven’t had a glimpse of you, all this livelong 
evening,” she told him, as she smiled up into his eyes 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


217 


with something quite alien to her old frank cordiality. 
“ However,” she gave a mischievous glance up at 
Ronald who stood beside her, tall, alert, and serious- 
looking; “ you aren’t the interesting invalid any longer, 
and now my mission in life is to entertain the homesick 
foreigner.” And, tossing a final good night to him over 
her shoulder, she turned back to Ronald, leaving Jack 
to make his last adieus to Irene as best he might. 

Nevertheless, next morning, she had lost somewhat of 
her last-night’s gayety, and she looked tired and a little 
bit disheartened, when she met the Argyles just out- 
outside Grace Church. Day pounced upon her speedily. 

“ You’re coming back to luncheon with us, Amy,” 
she told her friend; “ so you must wait for us, in case 
we don’t all get seats together. And, after dinner,” 
Day looked her in the eyes; “ you are going to have the 
lecture of your life.” 

Amy’s eyes wavered. 

“ What for, Day? ” she asked. But, in her heart, 
she knew. 

“ For behaving abominably, last night.” Day gave 
her arm a little squeeze. “ Now go along and ponder 
on your many sins.” 

Later came luncheon; later still, the lecture. Day 
took her friend upstairs, leaving Janet to entertain the 
boys. However, when the lecture came, it swiftly de- 
generated into a cuddle and a talk. Day asked ques- 
tions. Amy answered them. Day gave valuable advice 
and consolation which was still more valuable. Thus 
the long afternoon wore away, and at last Janet came 


218 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


to knock upon the door, to ask if Day was never coming 
down to make the tea. 

Then, and not till then, did Amy lift up her head from 
its comfortable place in Day's lap. 

“ I suppose I am all kinds of a silly being/' she ob- 
served, as she pushed in her loosened hairpins and 
straightened up her collar. “ When we self-reliant 
ones do lose our grip, the resulting chaos is awful. Still, 
there's not so very much harm done, Day. I've been a 
little cranky and tried to show my claws; but it's over, 
and you and I are probably the only ones who have 
thought so very much about it, after all. You can set 
it down to work and nerves; the others will think it 
was just my final fling, before I go to work in earnest, 
this next term. But, Day," she turned upon her friend 
abruptly; “ truly, you don't think Jack has cared? " 

“ Yes, he has worried; but," Day hesitated, struggling 
between her manners and her honesty. In the end 
honesty triumphed; “ but not nearly so much as Ronald 
Leslie has." 

And, in the weeks to come, her words proved true. 


CHAPTER SIXTEEN 


J UST one week after Easter, the friends scattered: 

Rob to Harvard, Paul to Williams and the five girls 
back to Smith, while Ronald went to join Lord Axmuthy 
in Chicago. It was Day Argyle who ordained that, in 
so far as the next term was concerned, the parting should 
be final. 

“ You all may come back to commencement,” she 
had announced, the night before, as the group stood 
gathered for a final word or two in the Stay res’ front 
hall; “ but we distinctly do not wish to see any of you, 
until then. You’ll keep, and college won’t. Just now, 
college is the main consideration, and there won’t be 
any room there, this next term, for outsiders.” 

“ Not even? ” Jack had wheedled her persuasively. 
But Day had shaken her head. 

“Not even you, Jack. We want to be all girls, in these 
last good times. Even the best of adopted brothers is a 
rank outsider, and must stop away.” 

And Jack, like all the others, had bowed to the justice 
of her words. They would keep, they others; and college, 
just now, was becoming very, very finite. 

Accordingly, they had gone their separate ways, 
Jack to his office, Ronald westward, and Paul and Rob 
back to their respective colleges. Phyllis had returned 


220 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


to the arms of Marguerite Veronica and the routine 
of freshman year, and the four other girls had gone 
onward into the alternating excitement and heartbreak 
of the senior summer term. 

To the eye and mind of the entire outsider, heartbreak 
is conspicuous by its absence, all that senior summer 
term, until, perhaps, the morning of last chapel. Work, 
too, appears to be reduced to a minimum; but the air 
throbs with an excitement which increases steadily with 
each passing day. Commencement, looming in the near 
distance, is accountable for a part of this; but only for 
a part. Four years of almost ceaseless academic gayety 
have accustomed the girls to even the consummating 
gayety of all, their own commencement. The real thrill, 
the real heartbreak comes oftenest in simpler ways: 
out of the long walks and drives afield, revisiting for 
one last time the spots grown dear by four-year custom; 
out of the long, long twilight talks when the theme is 
ever of the unknown futures stretching forward in 
wavering lines which radiate out from the college portal, 
as from a common centre, talks when the pauses lengthen, 
and the phrases, coming slowly, are punctuated with 
little nervous sounds, half laugh, half sigh; out of the 
hours of straying to and fro about the campus, of sitting 
on the steps of the observatory to watch the darkness 
creep upward out of Paradise and blot away the pretty 
picture; even out of the scramble up the dim stairway 
of the college tower, to stand leaning, shoulder pressed 
hard to shoulder, watching the moonlit town and mead- 
ows and listening, the while, with inattentive ears, to 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


221 


the unfailing fund of stories told by the veteran guardian 
of the place. No especial thrill in any of these things, 
the freshmen think as they look on. Three years later, 
however, freshmen no longer, they admit their error. 
It is the little things like these which prove the sweet- 
ness and the sadness of the college life. 

Not even the most careless of the seniors can escape 
the occasional sadness; not even the most crabbed. In 
all the fun and gayety, every now and then there rears 
its head the snaky thought that this is the last time, 
that never again will the girls be doing this or that 
thing in just the selfsame way. Alumnae may come 
back in throngs; they may go through the same old 
routine of motions, but the spirit of it all is different. 
They merely play a game of Let’s pretend. With the 
seniors, there is no pretence, no game. They are a 
part of the real thing; best of all they know it and they 
love it for what it really, truly is. 

None the less, all-embracing as it is, the sadness is 
but intermittent. Mingled with it at every point and 
completely downing it at most is the excitement which, 
increasing slowly, steadily, wave on wave, mounts to its 
highest tide in that mid-June week which stretches 
from first dramatics till the final toast and song of the 
class supper. A sense of the finishing out of many things 
lies over all the college. The courses in philosophy and 
science are by no means the only ones to be completed. 
In those last days, intellects are to be rounded out no 
more surely than are characters and, above all, friend- 
ships. In more senses than one is that final term of 


222 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


senior year the real preparation for commencement 
which is, after all, only the beginning of actual, practical, 
workaday existence for the average girl. It is then, 
under the strain of the great excitement and the little 
sadness, that the girls show out their real selves, devel- 
oped by the four-year modelling of the great machine; 
then that are formed the lasting friendships, too rarely 
based on the affections of one's freshman year. 

To this final rule, however, Sidney and Day and Amy, 
and even, in a measure, Janet, were proving the great 
exception. With Day and Sidney, the relation had 
never changed. Each needed the other for her perfect 
enjoyment. Mutually tonic, they were mutually satis- 
factory. Neither one of them would have deemed it 
possible to take an important step without first demand- 
ing and obtaining the advice of the other. In success or 
disappointment, each one went to the other, first of 
all, for comfort or congratulation. By degrees, more- 
over, the entire class had come to accept this relation 
as a general fact. As unlike as two girls well could be, 
to outsiders they stood always as a single unit, insepa- 
rable, indivisible. All that senior year, Sidney had ruled 
the class firmly and well, guiding it skilfully along the 
narrow, tortuous channel between sentimentality and 
arrogance; yet it was a matter of common theory that 
the real ruling was done, not in the class meetings them- 
selves, but in the hours when Sidney and Day, alone 
in the Tyler House, talked things over and took counsel 
together. Day, meanwhile, was making a most accept- 
able addition to Titania’s fairy train. There were a few 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


223 


ardent theorists who maintained the ground that Day 
Argyle would have been far more a weighty mortal, 
had it not been for the frank criticisms bestowed upon 
her by their class president. Theorists quite apart, 
however, it was a fact they all admitted that neither 
Sidney Stayre nor Day Argyle would have been half the 
girl she was, without the other. 

So far as the duet could become a trio, Amy Pope was 
the accepted third. From the beginning of their fresh- 
man year, Amy had been Sidney’s loyal friend; it 
had been by way of Sidney that she had learned to 
know Day. Now, asked, she would have found it hard 
to decide between them. She relied on Sidney’s sound 
judgment, on Day’s swift intuitions. Sidney was strong, 
Day sympathetic. If Amy had ever felt a doubt upon 
this last score, it had vanished, that Easter afternoon, 
when she had lain with her head in Day’s lap and talked 
with her about things which, she admitted later on, 
had been existent only in her own imagination. The 
wonder of it all lay in the fact that, afterwards, Amy 
had felt no regret, but rather a strange sense of conso- 
lation. 

Like most self-reliant people, Amy at heart was sen- 
sitive. Few girls in Day’s position could have heard her 
out and answered, and yet left no sting behind. In- 
stead, Amy admitted afterwards, she had regained her 
hold upon herself by looking at things, herself included, 
with Day’s clear, kindly eyes. After all, what had it 
been? The slightest possible change of attitude, con- 
strued by a tired girl into a wilful slight? An effort 


224 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


at retaliation, first by coldness, then by the trivial trick 
of heaping all her favour at another’s feet? It was a 
babyish thing to do, babyish and illbred. However, 
Amy’s cheeks burned less hotly at the recollection, after 
her talk with Day. 

Janet was the fourth one of the group — sometimes. 
Not always, though, by any means. More and more, 
Janet Leslie was finding out the truth: that she was 
born for friendship, not for intimacy. Like the tide, 
she could go so far, but no farther, save in case of 
storms. Storms, she was also finding out, were likely 
to prove disastrous to her moral fibre. Moreover, her 
own interests were absorbing a large share of her time. 
The new Monthly board was to be broken in; Puck was a 
young person whose eccentricities demanded no small 
amount of study; and there was one final course in 
American Diplomacy which seemed to Janet the fullest 
consummation of all the work which had gone before, 
a course which, day after day, threw clearer lights along 
the chosen path before her. 

Nevertheless, as often as opportunity offered, Janet 
betook herself in search of Day and Sidney. Her own 
roommate was an earnest young soul whose whole in- 
tellect had measured itself by the possible possession 
of a Phi Beta Kappa key. Janet had chosen her because 
she, too, needed to be thrifty, even economical, and 
because she^ was an orderly, undemonstrative damsel 
of tidy ways and studious habits, a girl who could be 
safely counted on never to get in the way, or to talk 
mismatched hobbies at critical moments. Janet’s 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


225 


judgment had proved trustworthy. In so far as her 
roommate was concerned, her senior year was quite 
devoid of friction. None the less, Janet took in her 
pleasures from outside. 

Her pleasures, her more social ones, that is, were of 
necessity somewhat intermittent. As result, Janet was 
learning to snatch at them promptly, when they came. 
Accordingly, one afternoon in late April, she cast aside 
her books, gave one glance at her engagement pad to 
assure herself that there really was not any rehearsal 
for that afternoon, and betook herself to the Tyler 
House. 

“ Just in time. Come on,” Sidney bade her hospitably 
from the head of the stairs. 

“ Time for what? ” 

“ Us,” Sidney told her tersely. “ Day will be here in 
a minute. She went back to take off her watch; she 
says it gives her an added sense of restfulness not to 
know what time it is.” 

“ Yes; but where are you going? ” 

“ To pick up Amy. Then to walk.” 

“ Won’t I be in the way? ” Janet asked irresolutely. 

“ Nonsense! You never are. Weren’t you pre- 
college? ” Sidney assured her briskly. 

“ That doesn’t count. Agatha Gilbert and Amy Pope 
were in the same school, before they came here,” Janet 
observed. Nevertheless, she made no effort to withdraw 
from the approaching expedition. 

The approaching expedition, however, was predestined 
to curtailment. Day joined them and, according to 


226 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


their plan, they went across to pick up Amy. Amy's 
brow was lowering, when she presented herself. 

“ Oh, wurra!" she made lamentation. “ Just as I 
thought I really did have one day off, the chairman 
of that scenery committee sent word she must have a 
heart-to-heart with me. Plague on her! Why can't 
she plant her shrubberies and elevate her grassy 
bunkers by herself, and leave me in peace? Else, what's 
the good of her being chairman? " 

“ To get her name on the programme," Janet sug- 
gested practically. 

“ Not fair, Janet," Amy retorted. “ I don't want 
people saying that’s what I was after. However, it 
does seem as if these sub-chairmen ought to be able to 
get on alone." 

“ They'd be sure to wobble and upset things, though," 
Sidney objected. “ The one reason we put you in, 
Amy, was because we knew you'd keep a finger on each 
one of them." 

Amy surveyed her slim, ringless hands despairingly. 

“ Even they aren’t large enough for that, Sidney," 
she said. “ Every now and then I need an extra 
thumb and forefinger to do a little extra pinching 
on some victim, and then the next in line is sure to 
get away." 

“ Is a pinching in order for this afternoon? " Day 
queried, from the step where she had cast herself down 
to await developments. 

“ I trust not. Still, you can’t always tell what will 
come out of a conference. She's a good chairman, 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


227 


though; and, in my more strenuous hours, I like to 
be consulted. It’s only that I felt frivolous, this after- 
noon, as if something nice were about to happen, and 
I wanted to fare forth to meet it.” Under her laugh, 
Amy’s tone was a bit rueful. 

“ And you can’t? ” 

“ Needs must, when dramatics drives,” Amy re- 
sponded. “ I can’t go giddy-gaddying to Florence, and 
leave the poor sub-chairman to confer alone.” 

“ Tell her to bring along her colleagues and get in- 
spiration from your daily abiding place,” Day sug- 
gested languidly. 

“ Thanks; but I value my household gods, and some 
of them are throwable, as well as breakable,” Amy 
made hasty response. 

Janet’s suggestion was more practical than that of 
Day. 

“ Then come over and frolic^ by the frog pond, and 
hear the toadlets cheep ,” she said. “ You can tell the 
maids where you are to be found, and it is too fine a day 
to stay in-doors.” 

“The sub-chairman won’t like it, and the toadlets 
stopped their cheeping , weeks ago,” Amy protested. 
Nevertheless, she went inside the house to give the 
necessary instructions to the maid. 

“ I thought you had a Monthly meeting going on, this 
afternoon,” she said to Janet, as, a little later, the 
four girls walked away together. 

“ Yesterday,” Janet corrected. “ We have prepared 
to lay down our arms and go out in a blaze of glory. 


228 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


They’ll never have such another year of the Monthly. \ 
We have made quite a new thing of it.” 

“ Janet,” Day rebuked her; “ self-distrust was never 
your besetting sin.” 

“ Never mind,” Janet reassured her. “ There’s 
nothing evil in conceit, when it is corporate. You’ll 
please note the fact that I said we. Of course, I consider 
it chiefly my own doing; but, as long as I don’t boast 
about it, there’s no harm done. By the way, Sidney? ” 
At the risk of tripping up Day, she spun about to walk 
backward, facing Sidney. 

“ Well? But I advise you to look to your own ways, 
or you’ll upset the daughter of the Argyle clan,” Sidney 
warned her. 

“ No matter about the daughter of the Argyle clan. 
She can look out for herself. It’s the Stayre daughter 
I’m interested in now.” 

“ Garret, or cellar? ” Sidney queried imperturbably. 

“ Careful, you teetotum, or you really will have Day 
bowled over.” 

Janet disdained this second warning. 

“ Cellar, I should say. Leastwise, it’s Phil, and she 
generally goes to the bottom of things more than you 
do.” 

“ Best save that nugget for the Monthly , Janet,” 
Amy advised her. 

“The Monthly doesn’t need it, thank you. It has 
better things in store for you than that. Really, Sidney, 

I do wish you’d listen. Did you know Phil has written 
another story? ” 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


229 


“ No! Has she? Is it good? ” 

And Janet, who deplored slang in others and disdained 
it in herself, yielded to the stress of admiration which 
could find vent only in a word culled from Paul Addison’s 
vocabulary. 

“ It’s — corking! ” 

“ Janet Leslie ! I’ll tell your mother,” Day threatened. 

“ All right, you may,” Janet dared her recklessly. 
“ The story is so unusual, it calls for unusual strength 
of description. My mother will tell you so herself, once 
she reads it.” 

“ Is it going in? ” Sidney asked, in a species of paren- 
thesis. 

Janet answered her in the same parenthetic fashion. 

“Going in! We can’t afford to leave it out. If I may 
also quote from Lord Axmuthy, it’s ripping. What did 
you remark, Amy? 

“ That I’ll tell your brother.” 

Janet stuck up her chin in merry parody on her own 
most wilful moods. 

“ I’m not afraid of him,” she said pertly. 

“Nor what he thinks? ” 

“ Not one single bit.” 

“ I wish I weren’t,” Amy observed, a little more 
gravely than she herself was quite aware. 

Forgetful of Phyllis, Janet spun about to Amy. 

“ Amy Pope,” she jeered; “ do you truly mean that 
you’re afraid of Ronald? ” 

“ A little bit,” Amy confessed. 

“ I’m confoundedly sorry to hear that, Miss Pope,” 


230 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


a voice said in their very ears; and, an instant later, 
Ronald Leslie, cap in hand, came striding around a 
bend in the shrubbery-bordered path. 

Janet fell upon him in delighted greeting. 

“ Ronald Leslie, you old dear! Where did you come 
from? ” 

“ Chicago. Axmuthy grew tired of the stockyards, 
and thirsted for the dews of this academic grove. Glad 
to see me? ” 

“ Enraptured,” Sidney said, laughing, as his hand 
came out to her, then Day. “ When did you ar- 
rive? ” 

“ An hour ago. I saw your mother, Day, as I came 
through New York. Axmuthy decided that he ought 
to call, and — ” 

“ How did you happen to find us here? ” Janet in- 
terrupted him. 

“ The maid down at the house,” he answered vaguely. 
Then, last of all, he held out a hand to Amy, and, as 
he did so, his brown eyes sought hers in steady question. 
“ Why the fear, Miss Pope? ” he asked her. 

But already Amy had rallied and was ready for the 
question. 

“ Just because you are so very, very big,” she made 
demure reply. And then she added, a little bit at ran- 
dom, “ Come, Day. If you want to go up to the Field, 
it's time we were starting.” 

Ronald, smiling and quite quiet, interposed. 

“ I am sorry to break up your going with the others,” 
he said to Amy. “ The maid, though, over at the house, 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


231 


told me I might say, if I found you, that you were 
wanted over there.” 

“ That chairman, I suppose,” Amy assented, too 
much absorbed in the apparent message to heed the 
diplomacy of Ronald’s phrase. 

The diplomacy continued. 

“ Really, she didn’t say. And I may walk back with 
you? ” The brown eyes now were appealing. “ Thank 
you. You others will excuse me, as long as you are 
three to one? And, Janet, you’ll be at mother’s house 
for dinner? She asked me to tell you to be sure to 
come.” And, with another doffing of his cap, Ronald 
turned and walked away at Amy’s side. 

Left to themselves, the three girls speedily recast 
their plans and decided to go to Florence, after all. 
Quickening their step, then, they went up the lane and 
rounded the corner into Elm Street where the budding 
trees cast their lace-like shadows across the white dust 
of the roadway. Sidney and Day were talking fast, their 
tongues loosed by the excitement of Ronald’s unlooked- 
for advent; but Janet, her eyes upon the long perspec- 
tive of the budding elm-trees, tramped on beside them 
in a thoughtful silence. 

At last, and quite out of the heart of her silence, Janet 
spoke. 

“ I really don’t believe there was a chairman waiting, 
after all,” she proclaimed to whom it might concern. 

And the mocking laughter of her two friends assured 
her, without the needed help of words, that she had been 
a trifle late in arriving at such an obvious conclusion. 


CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 


“ Ye spotted snakes, with double tongue, 

Thorny hedgehogs be not seen; 

Newts and blindworms, do no wrong; 

Come not near our fairy queen! ” 

T HE clear young voice seemed especially adapted 
to Mendelssohn’s dainty phrases, albeit the singer 
herself, with her Psyche knot of yellow hair and her 
linen walking skirt, cut in the latest extravagance of 
fashion, was far too mundane for a well-conducted 
fairy. The surroundings, too, were but dimly suggest- 
ive of fairy-land. In front of the gymnasium stage, 
a quartette of poles did duty as the shrubbery bower 
wherein Titania was to be lulled to dreamland by her 
fairy choir. The fairies themselves presented every 
phase of girlish modernity, although gauzy scarfs, 
silken shawls and even an occasional automobile veil, 
knotted between the shoulder blades and carried by 
their upper comers in the outstretched hands, were 
politely supposed to look like fluttering wings. A col- 
lection of low benches, placed in apparently haphazard 
fashion about the floor, answered for the mossy mounds 
over which the fairies were to trip — in every sense of 
the word. 

Half way down the floor of the gymnasium, Amy Pope 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


233 


stood and exchanged low-voiced comments with a 
brace of elocution teachers; and, lurking in a remote 
corner and feeling rather shamefaced over her own 
presence, a privileged spectator was looking on. It was 
no small privilege, either, that had been vouchsafed, 
since veils and shawls and Psyche-knotted fairies, poles 
and benches, all were a part of one of the late rehearsals 
for dramatics. 

“ Try it once more,” Amy ordered briefly. “ Begin 
where Titania comes on.” 

The troop scattered, not flitting now, but racing off 
after a purely mortal fashion. There was a little pause, 
and then Titania entered, to strike the happiest attitude 
compatible with the yielding surface of an oaken pole. 

“ Now, fairies! Softly! Light! And please don’t 
drop from the key, just because you are singing softly.” 

Again came the tinkling fairy music, this time from 
the chorus, -r 

“ Never harm, nor spell nor charm 
Come our lovely lady nigh.” 

And then a crash, as an end fairy, completely carried 
away with the beauty of the scene, missed her reckoning 
and bumped against one of the oaken substitutes for 
mossy mound. The fairy theme lost itself in a giggle; 
the brace of teachers frowned, and Amy laughed out- 
right, while the disgraced fairy sought the wings, 
rubbing her knee caressingly. 

Next to the disgraced and limping fairy stood Day 
Argyle. Tall as she was and healthy as a girl could be, 


234 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


there was an indefinable lightness, a daintiness in her 
every motion, that fitted well her part. Dressed in 
pale green linen, she had caught up a scarf of green 
and silver tissue, as she had come out of her room; and 
the metallic sheen of the silken folds, catching the sun 
from a western window, threw their lustre back to light 
her fluffy pale brown hair. Active and lithe and eager, 
Day had danced almost from her babyhood, danced as 
lightly and untiringly as a bit of white down above a 
breezy meadow. Now she was throwing every ounce of 
advantage she had gained, whether by nature or by 
training, into the making of her fairy part. Amy, 
gazing from her to a fairy on the other side, a fairy with 
the wooden joints and sprangling arms of a Dutch doll, 
gave a little sigh. 

“ If only we had a dozen Days, we’d be all right,” she 
observed to the teacher next her. 

The teacher smiled. 

" We’ll get there in time. It’s too soon yet to know 
what the other girls will train to.” Then she threw back 
her head, and her voice rang clearer. “ Now. Off the 
stage, everybody! Once more, enter Titania! ” 

And the scene repeated itself once more, and once more 
yet. 

Afterwards came the fairy training: exercises for 
the lightness of the body; exercises for the fairy tread 
which should be neither run, nor skip, nor glide, but 
rather a blending of all three; exercises for the waving 
arms, and for the easy falling of the fingers. After that 
again came the training for the fairy laughter, laughter 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


235 


up the scale and down, laughter in every sort of key, 
until the oaken rafters overhead seemed ringing with 
an elfin mirth, until Titania, sitting on the edge of the 
stage, her dangling heels tapping out the measure, smote 
her palms together in lusty applause. 

After it was all over, Amy and Day walked away side 
by side, their pale gowns of pink and green crumpled 
together with the closeness of their contact. Day 
heaved a little sigh, as they went down the steps. 

“ You were satisfied, Amy? " 

“ Yes. It went fairly well. I wish none of the others 
were any more — more heelish than you are. Some of 
them do come down with a most mortal whack, every 
now and then. Still, I suppose they will improve. We've 
a good deal of time ahead." 

“ And a good deal of work. Is anything left of you, 
Amy? " 

“Yes, any amount. Really and truly, Day, I am 
thriving on it and getting fat." She turned a singularly 
happy face towards her friend. “ Don't I look it? " 
she inquired. 

Day laughed. 

“ The astounding fact of it all is that you do," she 
said. “ It is enough, though, to kill a dozen stalwart 
lackeys. Besides, at Easter — " 

Amy interrupted her. 

“ Forget it, Day," she said a little bit appealingly. 
“ I promise not to get on my nerves again. Besides," 
she added, with a charming blush; “ I am having too 
good a time, nowadays, to want to." 


236 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


It was not altogether a change of theme that dictated 
Day’s next question. 

“ Really, Amy, manners apart, how is Janet working 
up?” 

Amy forgot her blush, forgot, too, her little mood of 
self-defence. 

“ Wonderful! ” she exclaimed. “ Manners or no man- 
ners, she is a star. Wait until you see her.” For, as yet, 
the play was rehearsing only by sections, not as a whole. 

“ I’ve seen her do scraps of it, of course,” Day an- 
swered. “ It seemed to me she was wonderful. I am 
so glad, too. Ronald and Mother Leslie will be so proud 
of her, and Janet is working harder, even, than I have 
ever known her. She deserves to succeed at any rate.” 

Amy laughed. 

“It isn’t deserts; it’s genius,” she asserted. “I 
used to have all sorts of holy ideas about perseverance 
and determination; but they all have been knocked 
out of me, these last few weeks. A girl can act, or she 
can’t. Deserving hasn’t the least thing to do with 
it.” 

Day shook her head. 

“ Once you’ve rested from trying to build a Quince 
out of Agatha Gilbert, you’ll change back again to your 
old theory. But really, Amy, I am delighted over 
Janet. The child is working to the very limit of her 
time and strength. Moreover, she isn’t working for 
herself, as most of us are. Her soul is set on making 
Ronald proud of her.” 

“ Perhaps,” Amy’s blush came back again, but Day 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 237 

j 

was too intent on Janet to vouchsafe a glance at the 
friend beside her, so the blush died away, unseen; 
“ perhaps she isn’t so unique in that as you may think,” 
she answered Day, in a voice which not all her effort 
could make to sound quite natural in her own ears. 
Then her accent changed. “ Anyway, Janet is bound to 
make an ideal Puck ,” she added. 

Lord Axmuthy, however, disagreed with her. 

“ Puck has got to hop and skip about,” he said, when 
Janet confided to him the great news that she had been 
chosen for the part. “ You can’t do that, you know.” 

“ Why not? ” she demanded. 

Lord Axmuthy, with sagging jaw, contemplated her 
during one thoughtful, speechless moment. Then, — 

“ You’re a girl,” he said, as weightily as if he had just 
chanced upon some brand-new discovery. 

“ Yes.” 

“ Girls can’t hop about and fling summersaults.” 

Janet laughed. 

“ How do you know? ” she demanded again and 
saucily. 

“ Know? ” Again came the pause of thoughtful 
scrutiny. “ Why, the way a chap always knows things, 
you know.” 

“But we can,” Janet argued. 

“ Can what? Not know things, you know; because 
girls can’t. They only think them. Really, you do 
jump to conclusions at a shocking rate,” Lord Axmuthy 
said helplessly. 

This time, Janet felt she had him cornered. 


238 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


“ But you just said we couldn’t jump/’ she reminded 
him. 

Lord Axmuthy, in his turn, jumped the comer. 

“ Well, you can’t,” he asserted, with conclusive 
brevity. 

“ How do you know? ” 

The sporting blood of his British forbears throbbed 
suddenly in the veins of Lord Axmuthy. 

“ Try it now,” he challenged her. “ Else, I’ll not 
believe it.” 

And Janet gave in, totally suppressed. Inasmuch as 
she and Lord Axmuthy, in their Sunday best, were 
walking churchward, bound for morning service, she 
felt it would be inadvisable for her to accept the chal- 
lenge. 

Lord Axmuthy, during those soft May days, was hav- 
ing, in vulgarest parlance, the time of his whole life. 
The seniors, from their freshman year, had carried him 
in hilarious recollection. Now they accepted him as a 
sort of honorary member of the class, endowing him with 
all manner of odds and ends of privilege denied forever 
to the decorous and dignified Ronald Leslie. Meanwhile, 
by way of his occasional calls on Mrs. Leslie, Lord Ax- 
muthy had established himself on terms of friendship 
with the Leslie house freshmen, who one and all united 
in treating him much as they might have treated a 
hoary chimpanzee culled from the nearest zoo. Al- 
ternately they coddled him and teased him to the very 
verge of frenzy; and then they stood aside and watched 
the resultant antics. 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


239 


The one exception to this rule was Phyllis Stayre. Her 
earlier meetings with his lordship had been roughened 
with friction, in so far as friction could be developed 
on so soft a surface as Lord Axmuthy’s mind. Later 
on, they had developed the habit of mutual avoidance. 
How the third and final phase had worked itself out of 
its predecessors was a secret known only to the two 
people most concerned; in fact, it was perceived, rather 
than understood, even by them. Howsoever that might 
be, by the middle of the summer term, Phyllis Stayre 
had taken Lord Axmuthy bodily over into the circle 
of her protection, and fought his battles with an energy 
past all gainsaying. 

Once only, after a battle of unusual vigour, she vouch- 
safed a word of explanation to an audience made up of 
her sister and Marguerite Veronica. 

“ I know how it is, myself,” she said; “ and it hurts. 
The queer one always gets the worst of it, unless he has 
somebody to take his part.” 

And take his part she did, early and late, in season 
and out, reasonably and unreasonably, but always 
valiantly. In this she manifested, not only her kindly 
heart, but her affection for a fight as well. Phyllis, 
justly pugnacious, was in her element; but Lord Ax- 
muthy, stone blind to the inherent fightiness of his 
champion’s disposition, gave her his gratitude in fullest 
measure. 

“ I say,” he confided to Sidney, one day; “ I think 
I rather like your sister. I usen’t to, you know; but 
she understands how to go about it with the other girls 


240 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


and make them stop their chaff. Chaff does get very 
tiresome, you know, when one keeps it up too long/’ 
And, his glass in his eye, he gazed across at Sidney rather 
appealingly. 

Three weeks later, he issued another bulletin. 

“ I say, you know,” he burst out excitedly, when he 
met Sidney coming up from down town, her arms full 
of bundles; “ I've been out walking with your sister. 
She’s game, you know. You should have seen her thrash 
a boy that was teasing a cat. Really, she quite walloped 
him about the ears. I say,” he added meditatively; I 
think I’d not mind about being her cousin, too. She’s 
not like you, of course. In fact, she’s very masterful, 
at times; but I’m not sure I mind. Now and then, 
one likes to see a girl that’s not a china shepherdess, you 
know.” 

And a shepherdess Phyllis certainly was not, unless 
her desire to protect her charge from the ravening and 
hilarious wolves which beset his pathway might have 
allied her with that race. She took superlatively good 
care of Lord Axmuthy; but she took it quite in her own 
way and with the scantest possible notion of his lord- 
ship’s theories and traditions concerning social inter- 
course. Now and then, he gasped a little at some wholly 
unconventional manoeuvre which Phyllis executed with 
a serene unconsciousness of all effect. Now and then, 
he dodged instinctively at the falling of some mighty 
blow so widespread in its scope that it seemed impossible 
that he should escape obliteration. However, as the 
days went on, the ill-assorted comrades became in- 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


241 


creasingly good friends. The peculiarities of Phyllis 
were set down by Lord Axmuthy as mere bits of her 
national characteristics. His eccentricities she at- 
tributed solely to the fact that he never had been 
completely understood. Not that Phyllis made any es- 
pecial effort to understand Lord Axmuthy. She merely 
took him as he came, and sought to make the best of 
him. With that in mind, she even endeavoured to act 
the part of chorus to his speechless moments. By way 
of result of her endeavours, though, Lord Axmuthy as 
a rule became yet more speechless, as he saw his vague 
thought phrasing itself, not according to the sketch of 
it he had made in the erratic convolutions of his own 
brain, but in the interpretation given it by Phyllis 
whose mental processes were free from all convolution, 
and about as light as a sledge hammer. Now and then, 
he even sought to explain himself a little clearly; but 
Phyllis promptly took the explanations from his tongue 
and refashioned them to suit herself. In the end and 
by slow degrees, Lord Axmuthy gave up the attempt 
to become vociferous, and left Phyllis to do it for him. 
After all, it was restful to be managed. 

“ It’s just as well, you know, for you to do it all,” 
he made philosophical observation, towards the latter 
end of May. “ Then, if they get testy at me, they’ll 
take it out on you, and I’ll not have any of the trouble 
of the row.” 

And, upon that final judgment, Lord Axmuthy pro- 
ceeded to repose. 

Meanwhile, their growing friendship was by no means 


242 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


wholly of the spirit. Together, they roamed as far 
afield as Lord Axmuthy’s natural indolence would allow. 
Together, they sat about in sequestered nooks, while 
Lord Axmuthy gazed raptly at the floating clouds, 
and Phyllis lectured to him about the Glory of WOMAN- 
HOOD, or read to him bits of Tolstoi and Thomas a 
Kempis, for she was approaching sophomorehood and 
had a consequently increasing tendency to take every- 
thing in earnest. Day and Sidney were very busy in 
those long May days; Ronald was spending endless 
hours in loitering about the neighbourhood of the 
campus, on the off-chance of a word with Amy Pope. 
Axmuthy, accordingly, had been cast upon his own 
slender resources, when Phyllis, taking pity on him, 
had annexed him to her list of things to be taken quite 
in earnest. 

Granted the need, Phyllis was singularly fitted for 
the task. Leisure she had in great abundance; the 
quickness of her mind ensured so much, that and the 
energy with which she went about her classroom work. 
Moreover, the girl was lonely, in need of a companion. 
Marguerite Veronica was not wholly ideal, taken in this 
capacity. She had a trick of interrupting, when Phyllis 
started to expound. Lord Axmuthy never interrupted. 
He merely relaxed the muscles of his lower jaw and 
gazed out into unfathomable space. Moreover, too, 
the girl, polished a little by the months of friction with 
her many mates, spurred on by the little edge of college 
fame which had come to her from her two stories in the 
Monthly , was beginning at' last to find herself. Finding 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


243 


herself, moreover, she felt the imperative need of arguing 
out the new relation borne to the universe in general 
by her freshly-discovered self. The old theories would 
not fit the new Phyllis. She must argue out some equally 
new theories; and argument without an audience, each 
one knows, soon gets to be a bore. Furthermore, hunt- 
ing through and through the whole round world, she 
could have discovered no other audience comparable to 
Lord Axmuthy. 

“ And yet, after all, why jaw? ” he had queried 
wearily, one day. 

In an instant, Phyllis set upon him and smote him 
sharply. 

“ That’s vulgar,” she rebuked him tartly. “ Besides, 
it’s not polite.” 

Lord Axmuthy sat up, his back dotted with bits of 
lichen from the supporting tree trunk, and gazed at her 
with eyes dazed by her rebuke. 

“ But it’s so true, you know,” he sought to defend 
himself. “ What’s the use of making so much talk 
about nothing in particular? ” 

Phyllis flushed hotly. She had been talking largely 
of herself, the previous half hour, and Lord Axmuthy’s 
words struck home. 

“ I like to talk,” she said a little stiffly. 

“ Of course. Any chap can see that. It’s as plain 
as the nose on your face,” Lord Axmuthy assured 
her. 

The assurance was not wholly reassuring. Phyllis, 
suddenly self-conscious, chafed her large nose for an 


244 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


instant, before proceeding to retaliatory measures. 
Then, — 

“ I'd rather have a large nose than a pug,” she made 
vicious answer. 

Lord Axmuthy sought his glass and stuck it in his 
eye. 

“ Oh, you ! ” he observed trenchantly. Then he added, 
with a manifest desire to administer tardy consolation, 
“ Well, you’ve got it.” 

In spite of herself, Phyllis laughed. The laugh cleared 
her own mental atmosphere, and she recurred amicably 
enough to her original proposition. 

“ Really, Lord Axmuthy, I like to talk,” she iterated. 

“Yes.” This time, it was plain, he sought to answer 
guardedly. “ Then why don’t you get about it? ” 

“ I was afraid I might be boring you,” Phyllis told 
him, with unwonted meekness. 

“ Oh, no; I don’t get bored. I just think about some- 
thing else,” he assured her gravely. “ It doesn’t take 
more than a word to set me off, you know, and then 
deuce knows where I will bring up.” 

“ No? Not really? ” Phyllis spoke with well-feigned 
interest. 

“ Oh, no. It’s quite remarkable the way one’s brain 
works. Sometimes, it quite kicks over the traces and 
jumps about like — like a mountain goat.” Lord Ax- 
muthy paused to take pleasure in his well-chosen illus- 
tration. “ That was what it was doing, just a while 
ago. The merest word had set me going, and when I 
stopped, you know, I was wondering why it was, if 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


245 


you were so set on talking, you never talked by any 
chance about the things that could interest a chap.” 

There came a little dropping cadence into Phyllis's 
voice. 

“ What sort of things do interest a chap? ” she ques- 
tioned. 

For a moment, his glass in his eye and his lips pursed 
out thoughtfully, Lord Axmuthy contemplated the 
distant face of nature. Then he spoke alertly. 

“ Big game,” he said; “ and fancy waistcoats, and 
your dentist, and how underdone you like your beef.” 

Phyllis rose to her feet. 

“ Come,” she said abruptly. “ It's time that I was 
going home.” 

Without stirring otherwise, Lord Axmuthy turned 
up to her an anxious countenance. 

“ I say,” he observed. 

“ Wen? ” 

“ You're looking jolly cross.” 

“ I'm not cross.” The tone, however, belied the 
words. 

“ Oh.” Lord Axmuthy fell silent, fell, too, into 
reverie. 

Remorselessly Phyllis jogged him from his reverie. 

“ Are you coming? ” she demanded. 

“ Where? " 

“ Home, of course. Do you suppose I am inviting 
you to wander off into the wilderness? ” Her tone was 
still impatient. 

No impatience, however, was in his lordship's answer. 


246 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


“ It wouldn’t be a bad idea,” he said reflectively. 

“ It might for me. Are you going to sit there, all 
night? ” Phyllis demanded, for the second time. 

“ Oh, no.” 

“Then come.” 

Instead of coming, Lord Axmuthy settled his hat 
firmly upon his head, and then clasped his hands upon 
his bunched-up knees. 

“ I say,” he asked her then; “ are you often so very 
cross? ” 

“ I’m not cross,” Phyllis asserted testily. 

“ You aren’t? But really, you know, you look it,” 
Lord Axmuthy argued gently. “ I wouldn’t get a 
habit of it, you know. You wouldn’t, either, if you 
only knew how very ugly it makes you look. Besides,” 
he added casually; “ it’s not like you at all. As a gen- 
eral thing, I find you quite good-tempered.” 

Strange to say, Phyllis felt her testiness yielding to 
the rebuke she so richly merited, yielding the more 
swiftly by reason of the final bit of praise which, she 
was so well aware, she did not merit in the least. 

“ Thank you,” she said quite humbly. “ I’m sure 
I wish I were.” 

Lord Axmuthy dropped the subject, dropped, too, 
all apparent consciousness that she stood waiting there 
beside him. For a long, long interval, he sat in silent 
study of the water at his feet. When at length he looked 
up to meet her eyes, his face was creased with two deep 
wrinkles which seemed bracketing his widely-smiling 
lips. 



“ He lifted one lean forefinger and shook it at her jauntily.” 

Page 247 




























































■ 














SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


247 


“ I say, you know,” he burst out alertly; “ isn’t 
this what they call Paradise? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Then,” his voice grew still more alert and, unfolding 
his hands, he lifted one lean forefinger and shook it 
at her jauntily; “ then let’s you and I be Adam and 
Eve, you know.” 

“ Lord Axmuthy!” The words came from the lips 
of Phyllis as if they had been blown out by a heavy 
charge of dynamite. 

Unruffled and widely smiling, Lord Axmuthy sat still 
and looked at her. At last, however, he offered ex- 
planation. 

“ I don’t mean now, you know. We’d best wait till 
you are older and a little better tempered. You see, 
you know enough to do the two of us, and you don’t 
chaff a chap all the time, as some girls do. Really, I 
think,” the finger once more came into play; “ I think 
the idea will bear remembering. Besides, you know,” 
he added even more alertly; “ if you thought it over 
and decided for it, then I could keep on always being 
cousins with your sister.” 

Then, rising stiffly, he offered a carefully crooked elbow 
to his bride elect, preparatory to starting out for home. 


CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 


M IDWAY down Main Street, Sidney halted. 

“ Well, of all the unexpected visions! ” she said 

slowly. 

In response to her words, two hats were swept from 
two heads, one yellow, the other brown. 

“ How do you do, Miss Stayre? ” the owner of the 
yellow head said suavely, while he shifted his suitcase 
to his left hand, and held out the right to Sidney. 

“ Rob Argyle, what are you doing here? ” Sidney de- 
manded. 

“ Jack and I thought we would come up and spend 
Memorial Day with Phil,” Rob explained gravely. 
“ On account of its being Sunday, we get an extra 
holiday, so we wrote to know if it would be convenient 
for her to have us.” 

“ Phil? ” 

“ Yes. Sure. Why not? Phil is a good girl; and, 
from all accounts, she seems to be needing a good Ameri- 
can on the horizon to serve as basis of comparison. 
That is, if Day’s letters are to be trusted.” 

Sidney shook her head. 

“ You’re too late, I’m afraid. Besides, Jack isn’t 
an American.” 

“ No; but he will be, if he keeps on,” Rob replied 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


249 


calmly. “ He’s improving, every day of his life. Speak- 
ing of improvement, how is Day? ” 

“ Busy, and as heavenly-minded as ever. However, 
you can judge for yourself.” 

Rob swung his suitcase back into his right hand. 

“ Oh, but I’m here to visit Phyllis,” he responded. 

“ Phyllis? Really, is the child expecting you? She 
hasn’t told me.” 

Rob chuckled. 

“ She hasn’t had time. She won’t get our letter, 
asking if we can come, until to-morrow noon. I looked 
out for that. Knowing Phil, I thought it wasn’t best 
to take any chances of being regretted.” 

f “ But why didn’t you write to Day or me? ” Sidney 
asked blankly. 

“ Because mine own sweet sister, when we parted 
at Easter, put up a sign: No Room for Loungers , a sign 
in great big letters half a yard long and as loud as a 
megaphone. After that, we didn’t feel especially en- 
couraged to make her any visits.” 

Sidney turned. 

“ Nonsense! You’re coming back to the Tyler with 
me now.” 

“ Not on your life! We value our ears; don’t we, 
Jack? Besides, we’ve made an engagement to go 
straight to Mrs. Leslie’s.” 

“ An engagement! ” Sidney scoffed. “ When it 
hasn’t reached here yet, and won’t for hours! ” 

But Rob shook his yellow head. 

“ We keep our engagements to the letter,” he replied. 


250 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


“ Sometimes, as you see, we keep them a little ahead 
of the letter. Run along, Sidney, and take your walk. 
We are due up Elm Street.’” 

“ Then I shall go with you,” Sidney insisted. 

“ Better not,” Rob advised her, with a cheery accent 
of impartiality. “ It may be better for your family 
pride, you know, if you don’t see the way Phil greets 
us.” 

However, to the extreme surprise of every one con- 
cerned, Phyllis entered into the spirit of the joke com- 
pletely. Perhaps it was because the girl was broaden- 
ing, and finding herself, the while she broadened. Per- 
haps she felt that the jovial comradeship of Jack and 
Rob would be a bit of a relief, after the mild excitement 
of Lord Axmuthy’s continued presence at her side. 
Perhaps, too, some wave of girlish vanity made her 
quite willing to exhibit herself to her unexpected guests 
as the chosen friend and the spiritual guardian and the 
social champion of his ineffective lordship. 

Whatever may have been the cause, Phyllis received 
her guests most graciously, smiled with a sort of grim 
politeness upon Rob’s explanation of their reasons for 
choosing her as hostess, and promptly set to work 
devising plans for their entertainment. In this latter 
task, Marguerite Veronica would have been a willing 
assistant. Phyllis, however, rejected all her offers of 
advice or help, rejected them kindly, but very, very 
firmly. Rob Argyle and Jack Blanchard, she was well 
aware, had not made their journeys to Northampton for 
the sake of being amused by kittenish freshmen such as 


SIDNEY : HER SENIOR YEAR 


251 


Marguerite Veronica. Her own plans for entertainment 
lay along quite different lines. 

As Rob had said to Sidney, Memorial Day, that year, 
came on a Sunday, giving the Monday holiday. The 
two boys had appeared to Phyllis, late on Saturday 
afternoon. Quite graciously she had assented to their 
suggestion of a call, that evening. She had not felt it 
needful, though, to warn them that Lord Axmuthy was 
also imminent. The resulting combination came near 
to proving too much for even Phyllis Stayre to handle. 
Jack was courteous suavity itself; but Lord Axmuthy 
divided his time between looking down upon the broad- 
shouldered Canadian as from an infinite height, while he 
regaled him on scraps of conversation edited to suit his 
social antecedents and his present station, and gazing 
at Phyllis with a meek, adoring blankness, whenever 
she sought to call him to order or to put him through 
his paces. Rob, meanwhile, was in a state of hilarity 
which verged closely upon spluttering hysterics. The 
sight of his British lordship, supine beneath the iron 
chariot wheels of Phyllis Stayre, delighted him no less 
than did Phyllis’s air of calm proprietorship in the mind 
and body of the futile little man. 

Under conditions such as that, conversation balked, 
then reached an utter standstill ; and not all of Phyllis’s 
efforts could drive it past the balking point. In vain 
she ransacked all the nooks and comers of her 
mind in search of pungent themes for conversation. 
Finally, she gave it up, and turned to Lord Ax- 
muthy. 


252 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


“ You have been here so very long now, Lord Ax- 
muthy,” she began, with ponderous gravity. 

“ Eh? ” His lordship made a hasty snatch to- 
wards his hat which, fearful of the honesty of a fresh- 
man house, he had insisted upon hanging on his left 
knee. 

Very slightly Phyllis shook a warning head at him. 
Almost imperceptible as was the gesture, Rob caught 
it. Moreover, Phyllis had an exasperated consciousness 
that he had caught it. 

“ You have been near the college so long, Lord Ax- 
muthy,” she amended her phrase; “ that I wish you 
would tell us what you really think about the higher 
education of women.” 

Dutifully, promptly, Lord Axmuthy passed in his 
verdict. 

“ Ripping! ” he asserted. “ It gives 'em such a 
tremendous lot of force of character, you know.” 

The next instant, Rob, struggling manfully with his 
emotions, heaved a sigh of frank relief. The great front 
door swung open and, a moment afterward Janet 
Leslie dashed into the room. 

“ So here you are, you sinners! ” she said, as she gave 
a hand to each one of the guests. Sidney telephoned 
to me that you were here. She and Day declare they 
won't come near you; but they told me I might take 
you over to the Tyler, for a little while, and sit there 
with you at the other end of the veranda. Phyllis, I 
am sorry I can't carry you off, too; but you appear to 
be engaged.” 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


253 


Then it was that, to the utter consternation of every- 
body present, Lord Axmuthy lifted up his voice. 

“ Oh, no; we aren’t,” he contradicted flatly. “ She’s 
quite too yoUng, yet, and she’s got to get a little better 
tempered before she’ll pass in England. We are only 
thinking about it now, you know; but I dare say we’ll 
pull it off in time.” 

Next morning, in furtherance of his own small joke, 
Rob insisted upon escorting Phyllis to church, where he 
found all the places for her with an ostentatious de- 
votion which drove the girl wellnigh to frenzy, and ren- 
dered her, for all time to come, an object of respectful 
envy to all the other freshmen within range. Contrary 
to her outward seeming, their girlish logic argued, 
Phyllis Stayre must be a veritable charmer, so to en- 
gross the entire attention, not only of a titled Briton, 
but, far more desirable, of the stalwart Harvard senior 
whose very face was enough to demand their instant 
liking. In the days that were to come, the attitude 
of Phyllis’s classmates towards her would be distinctly 
modified by the outward facts of her visit from Rob 
Argyle. 

Jack, meanwhile, had vanished, ostensibly with a 
message to Janet. In the course of the morning, how- 
ever, he was heard from by way of Ronald who had come 
upon him, calling upon Amy Pope; but, just at noon, 
the truant reappeared with Day beside him, crisp and 
starchy in her spotless white. 

Next day, to all appearing, Phyllis was at the helm 
of things in general. Sidney, however, had spent a 


254 


SIDNEY : HER SENIOR YEAR 


long hour in her sister’s room, the night before; and 
Sidney, had she been questioned with sufficient shrewd- 
ness, might have betrayed some knowledge of the course 
those things were to take. Rob, meanwhile, contrary 
to all his protestations, had been lured over to the Tyler 
House veranda, where he sat at ease upon the railing, 
with Day before him in her easy chair. The veranda 
was quite deserted, that evening, save for the distant 
corner, where Jack and Janet sat and talked Canadian 
gossip; and the brother and sister, for the hour, were 
to all intents and purposes alone. 

For some time, they talked at random, bringing each 
other down to date regarding the small, but essential, 
details that get omitted from even the longest letters, 
dodging backward at some reminder of their Easter 
holidays, dashing forward for an eager word or two 
about their summer trip to Europe, a family trip in 
which Jack also was to have a part. And then, all of 
a sudden at the mention of his name, Day grew a 
little thoughtful. 

“ Rob, is he getting fickle? ” she inquired ab- 
ruptly. 

“ He? Who?” 

Not daring to speak his name, Day merely nodded 
towards the distant corner of the wide veranda, now 
draped in heavy shadows, as the evening darkened 
out of twilight. 

Rob shook his head. 

“ Nonsense! Not a bit.” 

“ But — but it looks a little so.” 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


255 


“ Then don't trust to the looks, Day," he advised her 
gravely. 

Her brown eyes, raised to his, were very thoughtful, 
grave. 

“ I don't want to, Rob. And yet, I can't help worry- 
ing a little." 

Most boys would have assured her that her worry 
was quite wasted, even though the outward circum- 
stances of the case had justly called it forth. Not so 
Rob, however. He was too loyal to his love for his 
friend for that. Instead, — 

“ What makes you worry, Day? " he asked her. 

She dropped her voice a little lower. 

“ The way things have gone, all this year. Just now, 
it's Janet Leslie. All last summer and up to Christmas, 
though, it was Amy Pope. Then, all at once, he changed, 
changed without any apparent reason. Rob, it's not 
like him to be doing that, not like the one we want him 
to be." 

Loyalty to his chosen friend opened Rob’s lips to 
speak in his defence. A greater loyalty, bom of that 
friend's confidence, closed them again and bade him 
to be silent. 

“ You think Amy cares? " he asked, after a minute 
or two of silence. 

“ She did, bitterly. I think she doesn't now." 

“ How do you know? " Rob queried bluntly. 

Day hesitated. Then, because she could see no harm 
in frankness, especially to Rob, she spoke out. 

“ Part of it I guessed. Part of it I made her tell me. 


256 


SIDNEY : HER SENIOR YEAR 


We talked it out at Easter. She liked him, counted on 
him as a good friend — not anything more than that, 
truly.” Bending forward, she laid her hand on Rob’s, 
to emphasize her words. “ She couldn’t understand 
the change, any more than I could, and naturally it 
hurt her. She was very tired, too, with all this extra care 
and work about the play, and that made the hurt a 
good deal worse. Besides, I think she worried, for fear 
she had done something to make such a sudden change.” 

Leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, Rob watched 
his sister closely in the dimming light, listened intently 
to her low words. 

“ And now? ” he asked, after a little pause. 

Day answered without hesitation. 

“ Amy is very splendid, Rob,” she told him. “ She 
shook herself and took a good, fresh grip of things, and 
accepted the matter as it came. She kept herself so 
busy that she hadn’t any time to worry, and I really 
believe that now she doesn’t even think about it very 
much. The best of it all is, she doesn’t seem to feel 
hard to Janet in the very least.” 

“ Why should she? ” Rob inquired, with masculine 
obtuseness. 

Once more Day nodded towards the other end of the 
veranda. 

“ That’s why,” she said conclusively. “ And, after 
all, Amy is human.” 

For a little while Rob studied his sister in a thoughtful 
silence, as if seeking to discover whether she, too, were 
human in the sense that she had used the word of Am y. 


SIDNEY : HER SENIOR YEAR 


257 


Apparently the results of his scrutiny satisfied him, 
for at length he spoke, slowly, and far more gravely 
than it was his wont to do. 

“ Day/' he told his sister; “ I know a good deal more 
about this thing than you do, and I want you to promise 
me one thing: that you'll trust old Jack's honour and 
loyalty as long as you both shall live.” And not even 
the impressive final words, fraught as they were with 
solemn association, added one jot to the earnestness 
of Rob Argyle's charge to his young sister. 

Sidney, meanwhile, in Phyllis's room, was busy 
shaping the course of things in general for the coming 
day. 

The course, as it transpired, was to include a trip to 
Leeds, the climbing of an infinitesimal mountain, and 
the cooking of things for luncheon and, a little later 
on, for tea, upon the rocky outcrop of the summit. The 
participants in this festivity were to be the Leslies, 
the Argyles and the Stayres, with Amy, Jack and his 
lordship. It was Phyllis Stayre alone who gave the 
invitations, a gracious Phyllis clad in pale pink g.ingham 
and a flapping hat encircled with a pale pink scarf. 

The rocks at Leeds are steep and slippery, the hilly 
pastures wellnigh pathless. By the time the little party 
was half way up the climb, even Ronald Leslie's long 
legs were weary, and Amy Pope, beside him, frankly 
confessed to being out of breath. Sidney, however, 
alert and indomitable, had been in the front rank from 
the very start, walking with a free, tireless step that told 
its own story of her perfect poise. Half way up the 


258 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


slope, however, her step wavered, hesitated, lagged. A 
little later on, she was sauntering contentedly along at 
Rob Argyle's side, well in the rear of the procession. 

“ This is hard on you, Rob,” she had said directly, 
as she had turned to wait for him to overtake her. 

“ Not so bad. I miss my stick, though, on a climb 
like this,” he had made cheery answer. 

“ Where is it? ” 

“ In the front hall at home.” 

“ Why don't you use it? ” 

He made a wry face. 

“ Don't like the looks, Sidney. I'm not an aged dod- 
derer, nor yet an Englishman. After all,” he cast an 
amused glance up the hill at Lord Axmuthy, toiling 
along at Phyllis's side; “ the two terms are synonymous, 
more or less.” 

She laughed. 

“ More, rather than less, I should say.” Then her 
tone changed. “ Really, Rob, is this too much for 
you? I was a goose to plan it.” 

He shook his head in answer to her question. Then 
he spoke in answer to her later words. 

“So you planned it! I had a notion it was Phil's 
doing, a species of endurance test, designed to sift 
Axmuthy. I understand that they’ve put each other 
on mutual probation.” 

“ Sit down a minute, Rob,” Sidney told him abruptly. 

He gave her a glance of keen scrutiny. 

“ What now, Sidney? ” he queried, but a look in 
his blue eyes belied his mocking voice, “ Whether is 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


259 


it a fresh regard for my feeble knees, or has the mention 
of the Phil-Axmuthy affair bowled you over? ” 

“ Both, a little,” she said. Then the smile left her 
eyes and lips. “ Janet told me,” she added. “ Rob, 
just how bad is it going to be? ” 

Deliberately Rob placed his long person on the moss 
beside her, deliberately stretched out his lame 
knee which was aching from the climb. Then he 
turned to Sidney and spoke without a trace of flip- 
pancy. 

“ Really, Sidney, I wouldn’t worry, if I were in your 
place,” he said. “ Of course, Phil is ridiculously young, 
and, besides, we haven’t been prone to think of her as 
being matrimonially inclined. Of course, too, his other 
engagement is a little bit more recent than is usual. 
Still, they aren’t a usual pair of people, do what you 
will.” 

Sidney, her eyes on his face, shook her head. 

“Nor ever will be,” she said, after a momentary 
silence. 

“No,” Rob assented gravely. “ Perhaps it’s all the 
better for it.” 

“You think it’s bound to be; then? ” Sidney asked 
gloomily. 

Rob pondered for a while, his blue eyes on the valley 
at his feet. 

“ Sidney,” he said at last; “ I think I rather hope it 
will — in time. Saturday night, when the fellow came 
out with his announcement, I was completely flabber- 
gasted. No other, no more decent word can express 


260 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


it. Since then, I have grown rather to like the idea. 
It solves a good many problems. Phil isn't like every 
other girl; she's bound to have an extra outlet for 
her energy; and, from all signs, she’ll get it by way of 
Axmuthy. He’s a futile sort of soul; she manages him 
a good deal as if he were a rag doll. What's more, 
she’s happy in the managing, and so is he." 

“ Yes," but a cloud lay in Sidney’s gray eyes. “ Still, 
after she gets a little tired of the managing, what then? 
Is he the man to make her happy? " 

Rob took his eyes away from the valley at his feet 
and fixed them upon Sidney's face. 

“ Sidney," he said, still with the same unwonted 
gravity; “ Axmuthy is totally futile, and as funny as 
a monkey in a satin petticoat on top of a hand organ. 
Still, the little chap is a gentleman; he’s honest and 
sincere as a man can be, and as generous. Phyllis has 
brains for two. If he were as clever as she is, 
they would fight like cats and dogs. Axmuthy will 
never set the world on fire; but he doesn't need to. His 
great-uncle did that, once for all; and all Axmuthy has 
to do is to shuffle around in his shoes without losing them 
off entirely. It will be a great advantage for him to 
have Phil looking out for him, and making sure he keeps 
inside the shoes." 

Sidney heaved a little sigh. 

11 Yes," she assented once more. “ But when he gets 
tired of being looked out for? " 

Rob shook his yellow head. 

" He won't, not if she goes at it the right way." 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


261 


Then he added slowly, as if with some special meaning, 
“ Sidney, we never do.” 

“ Perhaps. Pm not too sure about it, though,” 
Sidney answered. Then she fell silent, so much en- 
grossed in Phyllis and her erratic lover as almost to 
forget the yellow-headed, hearty giant at her side. 

The giant was by no means forgetful of Sidney, how- 
ever. Instead, lying back at his ease to rest one elbow 
on the ground, he fixed his blue eyes on her face, studying 
it intently. He took slow note of the deep gray eyes, 
steady, kind, true, of the firm lips and chin, of all the 
modelling of the fresh young face, strong, trusty, and, 
above all, very womanly. Whether or not she was ab- 
solutely pretty interested him not at all. Watching, he 
merely told himself she was very good to look upon, 
better still to have for one’s most trusted chum. Be- 
sides, — 

11 Sidney,” he said so suddenly that the girl started 
at the breaking of her reverie; “it’s six years now 
that I’ve known you.” 

Slowly she turned to face him, letting her clear gray 
eyes rest upon his blue ones. 

“ Six good years,” she assented, with a smile. “ What 
of it, Rob? ” 

Her accent pleased him, no less than did her utter 
absence of all self-consciousness, as she put the simple 
question. For just a moment, his chin showed a bit 
unsteady, and the scarlet dyed his cheeks. Then, 
with his old, cheery smile, he spoke. 

“ Merely a proof of what I told you, Sidney: that we 


262 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


don’t get tired of being looked out for. In all the time 
I’ve known you, I honestly think you never have for- 
gotten for one minute that I — I had played football 
a little bit too hard. We neither one of us have said 
very much about it; but I’ve always known I could 
count on you, whenever I was in a tight place. It has 
made a difference, too.” 

Sidney’s face grew very gentle, while she listened. 
Frank as had been all her intercourse with Rob Argyle, 
she was aware that he spoke but very rarely out of such 
a mood as this. Moreover, the years had made a differ- 
ence to her, too, to her and also in her. 

“ I am so glad, Rob,” she told him quietly. “ It never 
seemed, though, as if I were doing very much.” 

An odd, whimsical little smile came at the comers of 
his lips. 

“ Not so much, from your standpoint, Sidney. It 
was merely that it was too much for any of the others.” 

“ Except Day,” she reminded him. 

“ Of course,” he assented. “ Always, except Day.” 

Then the silence drifted in between them, slight, slow, 
imperceptible at first; then, before they were quite 
aware of its existence, unbreakable. Sidney watched 
the shadows of the clouds moving across the distant 
hills. Rob watched Sidney. Once he started to speak, 
sitting up and even opening his lips. Then he checked 
himself, and settled back again while once more the 
scarlet blood stained his honest, happy face. At last, 
Sidney recalled her wandering thoughts and rose to 
her feet. 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


263 


“ Come,” she said. “ The others were out of sight, 
long, long ago. If we don't hurry, we’ll find they’ve 
eaten all the luncheon.” 

But Rob, without stirring, smiled up into her alert 
young face. 

“ I say,” he observed tranquilly; “ if Janet hadn’t 
given me that letter of introduction, what do you sup- 
pose we’d have been doing now? ” 

Sidney’s answering laugh should have been death to 
any sentiment. 

“ Totally disregarding each other, probably.” 

Nevertheless, there was a certain gravity in the way 
Rob shook his head. 

“ I doubt it, Sidney,” he made deliberate answer. 
“ Things may get themselves postponed; but they 
generally happen in the end.” And once again Rob 
Argyle’s voice took on the note of special meaning. 


CHAPTER NINETEEN 


I N all New England, few places are cosier than 
Barnstable. Especially is this true when the spring 
rains are beating on the old brown rafters overhead, 
when the wind sweeps the mist wreaths to and fro above 
the fertile meadows just beneath the windows, or hangs 
them on the rocky ledges of the mountains beyond; 
when the tea and buttered buns, smoking hot, are set 
out on the dishes stamped with the arms of the old 
inn of which, aforetime, Barnstable was what its name 
implies. Now the inn has vanished, however; and one 
has only to cross a bit of green lawn, pull open a 
door and clamber up a narrow stairway to find the old 
bam loft swept and garnished and ready for the serving 
of endless cups of smoking tea. The old rafters are 
left intact; intact is the primitive finish of the aged 
interior. The only points of daintiness, aside from the 
extreme neatness of the place, are the heraldic dishes 
and the quality of the buns. 

Thither, one afternoon when the rain splashed down 
in torrents and the wind was busy in the elm trees and 
out upon the open meadows, thither, one afternoon 
in early June, Day came with Ronald Leslie. The 
expedition was of her suggesting. The storm had made 
her restless; and, moreover, she was anxious to make 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


265 


the most of that rare privilege nowadays, an afternoon 
free from a rehearsal. Ronald had chosen the place, 
however. During the past four or five months, he had 
tested the merits of all the tea shops in the region, and 
to Barnstable he had given his entire allegiance. The 
buns and scones were the real thing, albeit somewhat 
demoralized in flavour by the nearness of the vast, 
cream-laden wedges of strawberry shortcake, which were 
beginning to appear at many of the tables. Never- 
theless, he liked the place; and, by now, he had learned 
the especial charm of one small table in the extreme 
comer of the room, a table looking out across the 
meadows, and set for only two. 

Now, with an air of manifest relief, he pushed Day’s 
chair a bit nearer the table, and laid his hat and stick 
upon a convenient bit of beam. Then, with the odd 
little backward shake of his wavy hair, a gesture that 
Day well remembered as being characteristic of all his 
social preparations, he drew up his own chair, sat down 
and beckoned to a maid. 

“ What do you want to eat, Day? ” he asked her then. 

“ Ever so much,” she answered hungrily; “ and let 
it be as British as possible, Ronald. Let’s play we’re 
back in Quebec again, and having tea at the Little 
Shop.” 

Contentedly he smiled across at her, before he gave the 
order. 

“ Those were good times, Day,” he told her thought- 
fully. 

“ And these are better, Ronald,” she replied quickly. 


266 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


“ We are older now; we know what our friends are 
worth, and we don’t squabble as we did then.” 

Elbows on table, chin on fists, he eyed her gravely. 

“ I only remember one great row,” he answered. 
“ As I think it over from this distance, it seems to me 
you were quite too busy bringing me up as I should go, 
to have much time left over for squabbling.” 

Day’s eyes swept over him in deliberate scrutiny. 

“ Did I bring you up? Really, I’m not sure I 
made a very good piece of work of it,” she said. I 
never realized I was the architect of such a structure.” 
Her tone was as saucy as were her mocking brown eyes. 

To her extreme surprise, her companion coloured 
hotly. 

“ I have done the best I could,” he made defensive 
answer. “ I haven’t had the chances, you know, that 
Rob has, or Paul Addison.” 

Leaning forward, her hands clasped lightly on the 
old brown table, Day looked straight across into his 
eyes. 

“ You’ve had other chances, Ronald,” she reminded 
him; “ chances to grow. Moreover, you have grown. 
Giving up things for the sake of Janet and your mother, 
and going over to England to live out your responsi- 
bilities, you’re ten times the man that any university 
could have made you. However,” in her turn, Day 
flushed scarlet, as she delivered her rebuke; “ however, 
growing as you’ve done, you ought to be too large 
by now to be so sensitive about things that one didn’t 
mean.” 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


267 


He met her glance gravely, but without a shadow of 
resentment. 

“ It's the old fault, Day. I begin to think that I 
shall never down it.” 

“ You will/' she told him fearlessly; “ that is, if 
you keep on working at it.” Then she looked up again, 
just as the maid bore down upon them with the tray. 
“ Ronald,” she added hastily; “ after all these years, 
you are wonderfully good to let me sit here and lecture 
you, the way I used to do. It isn’t the lecturing ex- 
actly; it’s for all that it stands for, and — We girls 
do care for friends like that.” Then, for the tea and 
toasted buns had come, she gave over speech in favour 
of the duties of the tray. 

While the buns lasted, Day and Ronald chatted al- 
ternately about their common friends, and about the 
storm which was growing more fierce with every passing 
moment. Then, when they could eat no more, and 
when Day had drained dry the little teapot, they sent 
away the tray and settled themselves for a gossip. 

“ You simply must not go out at present,” Ronald 
/asserted masterfully. “ In such a downpour, you 
would float away like the merest chip on the tide. Best 
wait here, on the chance of its slacking up a little. 
If it holds on too long, we’ll have a cab.” 

Promptly Day scoffed at the suggestion. 

“ Cab, Ronald! I’m a college girl, not a fine lady in 
society and thin-soled shoes. However, it’s nice, inside 
here. We may as well stay and have our gossip by this 
window, instead of at the Tyler House. You see, I 


268 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


have a whole free afternoon, and I insist upon being 
entertained until the very end.” 

And Ronald, nothing loath, settled himself more com- 
fortably in his chair, his elbow resting on the oaken beam 
beside him, his slim hand lying, palm upward, on the 
table. 

“ I'm lucky to get the afternoon, Day,” he made 
contented answer. “ Except for Amy Pope, I’m not 
seeing so very much of any of you girls; you’re all so 
busy.” 

Day smiled at the rain-swept meadows underneath 
the window. With the unerring masculine instinct, 
Ronald had happened upon quite the wrong excuse. 
Amy Pope was, by all odds, the busiest of all their 
little group. 

“We are busy, Ronald, nowadays, very busy,” she 
told him, after a short pause. “ That doesn’t make us 
care any less for our old friends, though, or enjoy 
them any less, when we do have time to play with 
them.” 

Ronald wandered off into a by-path of the theme. 

“ I don’t remember so much about Miss Pope,” he 
said. 

“ Amy? ” 

“Yes. From the time I was here before, I mean.” 

“ Perhaps you didn’t see so much of her, then,” Day 
made wholly obvious suggestion. 

“No; I fancy not. Of course, she was one of the 
freshmen in the house. I remember her, and even her 
sister,” Ronald said thoughtfully. “ They always 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


269 


used to be about the house ; but I never used to see them 
as I did you and Sidney.” 

Day laughed at his reflective tone; then she sought 
to lighten it. 

“ Perhaps because we two girls gobbled up all your 
time,” she said. 

Ronald shook his head. Like every other British 
subject, he was leisurely in the workings of his brain, 
save when his feelings were the point at issue. 

“ No; not that. I think it was largely my doing. 
You see, you were the only American girls I had ever 
known. You were used to me. The others all made 
me feel a good deal of a foreigner.” 

“ Canada isn't foreign,” Day protested. 

He laughed at his own forthcoming quibble. 

“ No; but America is,” he said. “ That's where the 
whole difference lies.” 

Day smiled in answer; but she made no effort to 
discuss racial questions, and a silence fell between 
them. Ronald broke it, and discursively. 

“ Do you know,” he remarked, after an interval of 
tapping his knuckles against the rain-streaked window; 
“ I always used to think Miss Pope was a bit of a snob.” 

“ Amy! Nonsense! ” Day repelled the charge with 
energy. 

“ I know. Of course, I understand her better now,” 
he made meek answer. “ At that time, all I knew was 
what Janet had told me: that she had any quantity of 
money, and that her ancestors were all kinds of famous 
people.” 


270 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


Day turned exceedingly literal. 

“ Her father is a lawyer who gets very large fees, and 
her great-grandfather was Secretary of State, in the 
days when that sort of thing really counted. However — 
What is a snob? ” She flung the question at him sharply. 

Again his colour came. 

“ It’s — it’s — ” He blundered, as he sought his 
definition. “ Why, it is a person that feels above one, I 
suppose.” 

Day shook her head until the trimmings of her hat 
danced with the motion. 

“ Not a bit of it, Ronald! A snob is somebody who 
isn’t anybody and tries to be all sorts of people,” she 
corrected. “ No; don’t laugh. It sounds rather 
mixed-up; but really it isn’t in the very least. A snob 
stands on her toes and tries to look taller than she really 
is. Can’t you see the difference? My snob is a snob in- 
grained. Yours is just any bad-mannered person who 
happens to come along. Besides,” she added in swift 
conclusion; “ Amy isn’t either.” 

“ So I find,” Ronald told her briefly. “ It takes a 
while to find it, though.” 

“ Ronald,” Day questioned abruptly; “ did Janet 
ever tell you about our fight, last year, when Jack 
went back on his old run, just for the sake of helping 
out a man down with typhoid, a man he had known in 
the old days? ” 

Ronald looked up politely, but with an obvious lack 
of interest. 

“ No. She never told me.” 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


271 


“Nor anybody else?” 

“No.” 

“ Listen, then.” Her elbows on the table and her 
hands clasped before her, Day plunged into the tale. 
She told it all from start to finish; moreover, she told 
it well, down to the well-remembered hour when Jack 
stood at bay before his so-called friends, awaiting the 
finish of the chorus of condemnation. Telling the ugly 
little story, Day’s face was yet very sweet and gentle, 
as she sat there, her brown eyes now on Ronald’s face, 
now on the rain-lashed meadows, but all the time plainly 
blind to what lay near at hand and in the present, and 
only beholding Jack Blanchard’s face as it had been, 
keen, strong, and showing hurt in every line and feature. 
Then all at once she turned her eyes back again to 
Ronald, and it was plain that now he was once more 
at their focus. “ And then,” she told him, low and 
quite gently, but with a curious, slow distinctness; 
“ when Janet and his own mother had condemned him, 
and none of the rest of them knew just what to say next, 
it was Amy Pope, the girl you called a snob, who came 
out first of all and strongly on his side.” 

Then purposely she let the silence fall again. 

When Ronald spoke at last, he appeared to have 
departed from Amy as his central theme. 

“ Blanchard is a good fellow,” he observed temper- 
ately. 

To his extreme surprise, he saw an ominous flash in 
Day’s brown eyes. 

“ I should say he was,” she answered rather curtly. 


272 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


“ Yes, I quite agree with you,” Ronald assented, with 
a mildness that completed Day's exasperation. “ He's 
rather an all-round man; and he's getting to seem quite 
like a gentleman.” 

Day snapped suddenly. 

“ Why shouldn't he? ” she demanded, with some heat. 
“ He is; and there's no especial reason he should con- 
ceal the fact.” Then she controlled herself, laughing 
a little nervously. “ Oh, Ronald Leslie, when will you 
learn the way we Americans look at things? ” she 
asked him. 

“ Never, I begin to think,” he told her, in mock de- 
spair. “ Besides, the question is: how much is Ameri- 
can, and how much is you Argyles? I don't meet so 
many girls like you, Day.” 

“ Sidney? ” she reminded him. 

“ Ye-es. But, after all, it’s not quite the same for 
her,” he responded. 

Day disdained to contradict his distinction. 

“ And Amy Pope? ” she added. 

Even behind Ronald's self-conscious blush, his face 
cleared. 

“ Yes, perhaps. But does she really feel the same 
about things, after all? ” 

“ I told you about Jack,” Day said fearlessly. 
“ Surely, that was a test case.” 

Ronald once more fell to drumming on the window. 

“ I'm not too sure,” he said a little moodily. “ It 
might have been merely a personal issue. Miss Pope 
thinks very much of Blanchard.” 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


273 


“ Yes.” Day’s assent was rather more dubious than 
she would have cared to make it, had she realized its 
possible importance to Ronald. “ Yes, she and Jack 
have always been good friends.” 

Ronald nodded slowly. 

“ Of course. And he thinks a great deal of her; 
he is bound to. But the next question is,” and again 
his eyes grew moody; “ would she feel that way about 
everybody, or only just about him? ” 

Day’s gravity departed, and her laugh burst out, 
gay and irresponsible, across the gloom of Ronald’s 
mood. 

“ Ronald,” she adjured him; “ you’ve been with Lord 
Axmuthy so much lately that you have absorbed 
his mental methods. If you’ve something on your mind, 
do have it out and over, and not let it strangle you like 
this.” 

But Ronald refused to share her merriment. Aban- 
doning his tattoo upon the window at his side, he 
once more cupped his hands beneath his chin. 

“ Very well,” he answered, with what, for him, was 
quite unwonted brusqueness; “ if you must have it 
straight, here ’tis. Would Amy Pope, with all her 
ancestors and all her millions — ” 

“ Hundred thousands, at the very most,” Day made 
literal correction. 

Ronald waved aside the correction. 

“ With all this back of her, would Amy Pope look 
down on — well, me, for instance? ” 

Strange to say, Day, with all her keenness, was mis- 


274 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


led by the apparent carelessness of the final words. 
Nevertheless, — 

“ Why should she, Ronald? ” she asked him. 

“ I haven’t a cent to my name. I work hard to help 
on my mother, who likewise works hard, taking stu- 
dent boarders.” He spoke deliberately; but a slight 
unsteadiness of lip and nostril and of the long, slim 
fingers betrayed that his quiet was merely superficial. 

“ What difference does that make? ” Day demanded. 

“ All the difference in the world — sometimes.” 

11 Never. Not to anybody that’s at all decent. You’re 
a gentleman; aren’t you? ” 

“ I hope so,” Ronald confessed meekly. 

“ And you pay your bills, and don’t shirk earning your 
salary, and help somebody else along a little bit, be- 
sides? ” 

“ Only mother and Janet,” he confessed again. “ And 
they have to work for their living, too.” 

Once more, Day brought her elbows down upon the 
table, this time with an angry thump. 

“ Ronald, you do make me very cross,” she said. “ You 
are so fine in some ways that you have no business to 
have such bargain-counter notions. You say you 
care for Amy Pope’s opinions. If Amy Pope were to 
hear you babble along like this, she would cut your 
acquaintance, at once and for all time. It’s you that 
are the snob, not she.” 

To her astonishment, Ronald neither flinched nor 
even blushed beneath the fervour of her arraignment. 
Instead, he answered her with a curiously gentle gravity 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


275 


which warned her, for the first time, how near to his 
heart was this whole question. 

“ But honestly, Day, there really is something to 
be said on my side.” 

Purposely she misunderstood him. 

“ Of course there is. You were born a gentleman. 
You are honest and independent; and — ” as if repent- 
ing of her recent heat, she unclasped her hands and held 
out one of them to him; “ and you are a loyal, patient 
old chum to let me lecture you, the way I do.” 

Smiling, he laid his fingers on hers for a moment. 
Then, as he resumed his former position, the smile 
died away once more. 

“ I didn’t mean that, Day. I only meant that there 
was something to be said in favour of my babble.” 

“ Yes, there is,” she answered coolly, as she sat looking 
at him above the bridge of his interlocking fingers. 
“ It gives me some idea which of your mistaken notions 
need correcting first.” 

“ But are they so mistaken? ” he persisted. “ Even 
you Americans — ” 

Again there came the little flash in the brown eyes 
before him. Again the owner of the eyes controlled 
herself and curbed her irritation. 

“ Even we Americans, Ronald, have a little saving 
common sense,” she told him flatly, yet with an accent 
that bore no sting of temper. “ We like our money, 
and the nice things it gets for us and for our friends. 
It isn’t the only thing we like, though, and we don’t 
choose our friends because they have it. In fact, if 


276 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


they do have it, and don’t use it for any good, we gen- 
erally end by cutting them completely. And it’s not 
just us girls who feel that way, either. Rob is just the 
same, and so is my father. It’s the man himself we care 
for; what he is, himself, not what he’s got.” 

“ And you think,” Ronald asked her slowly, while 
his brown eyes seemed to look her through and through ; 
“ you really think that Amy Pope feels the same way 
about things? ” 

“ I should despise her, if she didn’t,” Day assured him 
curtly. 

“ And that she would — would — ” Ronald hesi- 
tated, turned scarlet, stuck fast. 

“ Would what? ” Day pushed him a bit remorselessly. 

Ronald floundered for a helpless moment; then he 
braced himself to the inevitable, and blurted out, — 

“ Would ever get to care for a chap who didn’t have 
one tenth as much as he ought to? ” 

For one short instant, Day’s brown eyes seemed to be 
popping from her head. Then she rallied swiftly. 

“ Ronald, you splendid old thing! Is that really 
what you have been driving at, all this long time? ” 
she asked him breathlessly. 

His secret out, Ronald sat back in his chair, blushing 
and smiling, but apparently quite satisfied at his own 
self-betrayal. 

“ I suppose it is, Day.” 

“ Suppose! Don’t you know? Oh, you gigantic old 
dunce! ” Day assailed him. “ Why don’t you go about 
it, then, and find out for sure? ” 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


277 


Ronald turned a shade more crimson. 

“ I would, if I knew just how to go about it.” 

“ Ask her,” Day advised him flatly. 

“ And if I dared,” he added. 

She looked up at him in sudden gravity. 

“ Ronald, you are afraid? ” she asked him. 

“ Yes, Day.” And his gravity grew even deeper now 
than hers. “ Yes, I am.” 

“ Why? ” 

“ Because — because I haven’t so much to offer 
her, you know.” His slim hands, open on the table 
between them, added point to his words. 

“ Not now. You will have,” she insisted. 

Slowly one hand shut into a tight fist. 

“ Yes, God willing,” he told her solemnly. 

It was a little while before he spoke again. 

“ Day,” he said then; “ you know the both of us. 
You have known me for five or six years; you know 
I’ve nothing but my father’s record and my own grim 
determination to win out in time. You know Amy, too, 
know her as nobody but another girl can do. What 
do you think of the chances? ” 

It was no question for Day to answer lightly. The 
tall Canadian was very much in earnest now. More- 
over, Day knew quite well that, beneath the mask of 
his handsome, sensitive young face, his gentle delibera- 
tion of manner, Ronald Leslie was strong, resourceful 
and determined. To be sure, as the world measures 
things, he was no good match for Amy Pope. However, 
was there no other, higher standard than the one by 


278 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


which the world does measure things? As if in answer 
to her own question, a sudden wave of scarlet blood 
mounted across her cheeks and dyed the roots of her 
pale brown hair. Neither for herself nor Amy, she 
believed, would the world’s standard ever be quite 
final. 

“ Ronald,” she told him, with a sweet gravity, born 
not entirely of her old affection for this good comrade 
of hers, but rather in part out of the secret sources of 
her recent blushing; “ no one girl can ever safely say 
what another girl, in such a case as this, will do. All I 
can say is that I hope you are not going to be disap- 
pointed. I do know you both. You are one of my 
old, old friends; I trust you and I honour you com- 
pletely.” Her brown eyes met his eyes in perfect 
frankness. “ I believe that you will make some girl, 
Amy, or some one else, a splendidly happy woman. 
As for Amy Pope, she’s true as steel, and honest and 
straightforward as any girl can be, can ever be. The 
man who gets her is going to win a treasure; and,” 
she rose, as she spoke, and stood beside him, tall and 
smiling; “ and I truly, truly hope you’ll be that man.” 

And then, still smiling and quite heedless of any 
looker-on, she offered him her hand in token of her own 
sincerity. 


CHAPTER TWENTY 


“ T SAY, Day,” Rob Argyle had observed, upon the 
threshold of their freshman year; " has it ever 
occurred to you that one or the other of us must get 
himself dropped, for the sake of our seeing each other 
through our own commencements? ” 

However, the kind forethought of trustees and over- 
seers had made such stringent measures needless. By 
reason of the date of his senior vacation, that final 
I breathing time before the actual finish, Rob found it 
; quite in order to see Day’s graduation through from 
lend to end. Laden with all of his best raiment and 
smiling from ear to ear, he reached Northampton early 
jin the day of Friday dramatics, and promptly swept 
| his sister off her feet and into his strong embrace. 

" No end proud of you, old girl! ” he assured her, as 
he set her down again. “ But why this hectic pal- 
| lor? ” 

Day laughed. 

“ The same sort of why that kept me from meeting 
you at the station. I am a fairy, you must realize, 
and this is the remains of my last-night’s make-up.” 

“ Great Scott! ” Rob gazed at her in open consterna- 
tion. “ You don’t mean it’s going to be chronic? ” 

"Not as chronic as one could wish,” she reassured 


280 


SIDNEY : HER SENIOR YEAR 


him. “ I shed a good deal of it off, all over the pillow 
case, last night.” 

“ You'd best have shed it all, while you were about 
it,” Rob protested. “ I say, Day, I hate to see you 
painted up in this fashion.” 

Day gave a little prance of sheer excitement. 

“ Wait till you see me on the stage,” she advised him. 

“ Hold still, you jumping-jack! I've brought you 
something to keep you in good temper.” Rob struggled 
with his pockets, and then drew out a little case. “ Will 
I have to wait long? ” he queried, as Day fell upon the 
case. 

“ Rob! What a darling! ” she exclaimed. 

Rob laughed. 

“ Ambiguous, ma'am. To which of us do you refer, 
the person or the thing? ” 

“ Both.” The contents of the case glistening in her 
hand, she cast herself upon his neck. “ You always 
do think of the nicest things! ” 

Rob’s arm went around her tight, tight, for just a 
minute. Then, laughing, he held her off in mock self- 
protection. 

“ 'Ware my clothes! ” he ordered her. “ I don't want 
to walk abroad in a pink-cheeked collar and a coral- 
lipped necktie.” 

However, she gave him one final nuzzle for good meas- 
ure. Then she returned to the ways of sobriety, and the 
contemplation of her sapphires. 

“ My birthstone,” she said contentedly. “ You 
were such a dear to choose them.” 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


281 


“ They’re said to be lucky/’ Rob assented. “ Be- 
sides, they ought to be becoming, once you get yourself 
made down a little.” 

“ If you think I am made up, you ought to see Janet,” 
she responded. 

“ Heaven forfend! That is, if she’s any worse than 
you are,” Rob made hasty answer. “When do I see 
you caper and flap your gauzy pinions, Day? ” 

“ To-morrow night.” 

“ Not till then? I thought you did it every night or 
so.” 

“ But that is the great night of all,” she told him. 
“ I thought you’d rather see it then.” 

“ There’s nothing against my sitting it out, two nights 
running,” he observed. 

“ Nothing but lack of tickets. However,” Day 
pondered swiftly; “ it’s possible I could get an extra 
for to-night. It won’t be any fun; nothing but old 
alums, and no calling out the girls. Still, if you 
think — ” 

“ Sure! ” Rob interrupted. “ Likewise Jack. Has he 
come yet?” 

“ He’ll be here, just before luncheon. These came, 
this morning.” Day lifted the heavy-headed rose in 
her belt. 

“ These? ” Rob bent to look. “ Ah, I observe. This 
is a sample copy.” 

“ Yes. He sent about a bushel, all of this greeny- 
white. Sidney had some, too, from him ; but hers were 
all dark red.” 


282 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


“ Characteristic/' Rob made comment, with an odd 
little smile about his lips. “ Jack's not altogether the 
person you'd say would talk in flowers; but, once 
he goes about it, he manages to be fairly express- 
ive." 

“ What are you talking about, Rob? " Day inquired, in 
manifest curiosity. 

Rob's answer was scarcely framed to lessen her curi- 
osity. 

“ Little brindled pussy-cats," he answered. “ Now 
run along, Day; I must be going over to the Inn, to 
prove property on my room; else, they'll be giving it 
to some other girl's adoring relatives." 

“ Room! " Day echoed. “ Does the boy think he can 
have a room all to himself! It’s Jack's room, too." 

“ Then I'll proceed to annex my share before he comes, 
as Phil did in the case of Marguerite Veronica. Tell 
me, Day, how did that combination ever come out? " 

“ It's still coming." Day laughed a little. “ They are 
to room together in the Albright, next year." 

“ Room together! Je — rusalem! " Rob whistled. 
“ Marguerite Veronica must be a nervy soul." 

“ She is. Phil makes no bones of saying she'd rather 
keep on with her than have to get used to some other 
roommate's didoes. Don't look so shocked; I'm only 
quoting. Besides," Day added, as if from a tardy sense 
of justice; “ I really think that Phil is improving just 
a little." 

“ Under the chastening influences of Axmuthy? " 
Rob looked about for his hat. Then he turned back 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


283 


again to inquire, “ Have you ever heard what Papa 
and Mamma Stayre think of Phil’s bantling? ” 

“ Not in detail. Sidney hasn’t inclined to say too 
much about it. It’s my own notion, though, that they 
think they can’t well help themselves, and may as 
well behave as if they were resigned to whatever comes. 
Now do go on, Rob.” And she gave him a little push 
towards the door. 

“ Why this unseemly haste to get rid of me? ” Rob 
demanded, without stirring. 

“ Merely to get you back again as soon as possible. 
We must have just one talk together, before Jack gets 
here.” 

“ Even Jack, Day? ” For an instant, a graver note 
came into Rob’s jolly voice. 

With a little gesture of complete self-abandonment, 
she flung herself into his arms, where he caught her and 
held her close. 

“ What is it, Day? ” he asked her gently, for it was 
but seldom that she showed herself emotional like this. 

Without stirring otherwise, she turned her face up to 
his. Her cheek was once more pressed against his 
shoulder; but, this time, Rob manifested no anxiety 
for the possible fate of his clothes. Instead, looking 
down into her brown eyes, he drew her closer to him. 

“ Rob,” she was asking a little bit unsteadily; “ do 
you suppose a dozen Jacks could ever come in between 
you and me? ” 

And Rob’s answer came with all his heart. 

“ No, Day. No one ever could.” 


284 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


Then, for they heard a step approaching in the hall 
outside, he bent his head to kiss her cheek, her forehead, 
then gently let her go from his embrace. 

Nevertheless, no trace of their emotion lingered in 
their faces, two hours later, when, side by side, they 
paced up and down the long platform of the station. 
Day, daintily dressed and groomed, but veiled with 
suspicious care, had insisted on meeting Jack at the 
train; and Rob, nothing loath, had set out at her side. 
Just at the entrance to the station, Day had halted, 
laughing. 

“ Rob,” she demanded gayly; “ do you remember the 
day we came down these steps, after we’d watched the 
Aurora out of sight? What a dismal pair of youngsters 
we were! ” 

Rob’s laugh jarred the arching roof above him. 

“ By Jove, Day, I had forgotten. We went to walk; 
didn’t we, somewhere off over there, and had our woes 
out by ourselves? I remember thinking that Cambridge 
was a good seventeen hundred miles from here.” 

Day nodded. 

“ I shared the belief. I also remember the heroic 
fashion in which you offered to give up Harvard and 
come to Amherst. Even in my mizzles, I couldn’t 
accept any such sacrifice as that, though.” 

“ Imagine it! ” Rob laughed again. “ I could have 
put on my Sunday coat and my real-leather gloves, 
and come across to vespers, any week. How nice! 
Still, Day, we’ve managed to survive the separa- 
tion.” 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


285 


Day laughed. 

“ We have. Also, Rob, strange as it may appear, 
Daddy has managed to pay for your mileage books; 
but I wondet that it hasn’t crippled him finan- 
cially.” 

“ He has saved it in worry and in telegrams,” Rob 
answered. “ He knew I was on the spot to look out for 
you, and he could rest easy on that score. They’ll 
be up, to-morrow? ” 

“ In the afternoon, any number of them, a whole 
Aurora- ful. Speaking of the Aurora , Rob, has it ever 
occurred to you that my diploma isn’t going to say a 
word of Day Argyle? ” 

Rob’s eyes swept over her contentedly. 

“ No matter; all the rest of the college is,” he told 
her. “ By Jove, there comes the train, Day! Hurry, 
or we’ll miss him, after all.” And they went speeding 
down the platform at a pace which proved that Rob’s 
strained leg, however it might make him limp, had by 
no means parted with all of its agility. 

That afternoon, they were all on the veranda of the 
Leslie house for tea: Janet, Sidney and Jack, the Argyles, 
Phyllis and her faithful Lord Axmuthy. Last of all 
and very late came Ronald and Amy Pope. Their 
excuses, when they did come, were not altogether co- 
herent or satisfactory. Amy, blushing a little as she 
spoke, put in the plea of an unexpected duty which 
concerned dramatics; but, inasmuch as the delinquent 
pair had come out of the lane which leads to Paradise, 
the path of duty must have lain along a devious trail. 


286 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


Ronald, on his side, made no especial plea. He merely 
listened to that of Amy with approving eyes, but cheeks 
the colour of a ripe tomato. 

“ Your duties must be nearly over, Amy,” Jack said, 
as the delinquents settled themselves on the edge of the 
veranda and accepted their cups of tea. 

“ To-morrow night is the end.” 

11 And it has been worth the while, in spite of all the 
work? ” he questioned. 

Amy nodded. 

“ It remains to be seen, though,” she added, in modi- 
fication of her nod. 

From the other end of the veranda, Lord Axmuthy 
lifted up his voice. 

“ I saw it,” he said a trifle thickly, owing to a recently- 
acquired scallop of cheese sandwich. 

“ You? I thought outsiders didn’t get the chance 
until to-night,” Rob interposed. 

“ I went with her,” Lord Axmuthy explained, with a 
cursory sort of nod at the girl beside him. “ It was her 
night, you know; and I thought, all things considered, 
I’d best be with her.” 

“ In case she swooned, or else had a row with the 
ushers? ” Rob inquired. “ It might be safer, as you 
say, all things considered.” 

Lord Axmuthy gazed down upon him from his own 
superior pinnacle of information. 

“ Oh, you couldn’t row the ushers; they are girls,” 
he said. 

“ You couldn’t; but perhaps Phil could make it 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


287 


out,” Rob was beginning; but Day, for the sake of 
prudence, intervened. 

“ What did you think of the play, Lord Axmuthy? ” 
she asked. 

Lord Axmuthy, his cup uplifted in his hand, pondered 
for a space. 

“Not too bad, you know,” he answered temperately 
then. 

Janet, in the lee of Jack’s elbow, stuck up a reproving 
head. 

“ Is that the best you can say of us, Lord Axmuthy? ” 
she demanded. 

Again his reply was temperate. 

“ Really, you know, it might be worse,” he ex- 
plained. 

“ Lavish praise, Janet! ” her brother called across 
to her. “ Evidently I’ll not blister my palms, applaud- 
ing you.” 

“ Oh, her? ” Again Lord Axmuthy pondered. “ But 
she hops around the stage so fast, you can’t really 
tell what she’s supposed to be about.” 

“ Pwcfcing,” Janet told him gravely. 

“ Eh? Oh, is that it? ” Lord Axmuthy sought the 
solace of his eyeglass. “ I am not sure, then, I’d care 
to go in for it, myself; it makes one seem to feel so very 
flustered. Really, it isn’t restful in the least.” 

Once more in common prudence, Day sought to inter- 
vene. One and all, they themselves were in imminent 
danger of becoming flustered at the suggested picture 
of Lord Axmuthy as Puck . 


288 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


“ Have any of you heard of any really good criti- 
cisms? ” she inquired. “ Any others, I mean,” she added, 
with belated courtesy. 

“ Only the gossip of the girls. I hear they like it, 
as a general thing,” Sidney responded. 

“ They’d better,” Amy asserted, in mock indigna- 
tion. “ After the way I have worn myself out in the 
cause of dramatics, I demand recognition of our grand 
success.” 

“ Hush, Lord Axmuthy! ” Phyllis checked a semi- 
audible comment from her companion, checked it with 
a masterful severity which taxed to the uttermost the 
gravity of all the others in the group. Then she turned 
to Amy. “ I heard one comment,” she said. “ I don’t 
know, though, what it was worth. I had a girl next 
me, a wonderfully handsome girl, with bright brown eyes 
and hair. What? ” She turned back to Lord Axmuthy 
with a curious blending of annoyance and strained 
patience. 

“ She looked so terribly in earnest, you know,” Lord 
Axmuthy was murmuring at his empty cup. “ Really, 
I felt quite afraid of her, when I met her eye.” 

“ Which eye? ” Phyllis demanded, as she craned her 
neck to peer into his cup. “ Mrs. Leslie,” she added 
then; “ I think Lord Axmuthy might have another 
cup of tea.” 

Rob’s own tea shook on his knee. 

“ Bad for the nerves, Phil,” he reminded her. 

“ Not if he doesn’t take too many lumps of sugar 
and upset his appetite,” she answered gravely, and Sid- 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


289 


ney made haste to lay a steadying hand upon Rob's 
cup and saucer. 

“ What did the girl say, Phyllis? ” Amy asked her. 

Phyllis delayed her answer for a second. 

“ Only two lumps, please,” she bade Mrs. Leslie. 
“ And, while you are about it, you might lay another 
sandwich in the saucer.” Then she turned to Amy. 
“ I heard her telling somebody behind me that she was 
back for her reunion. She said she was in the cast of 
their own play, and that, all in all, this was as good as 
Hamlet .” 

“ Amy Mehitabel Pope! ” Day spun about to seize 
her friend by the hand. “ You'd best sing your Nunc 
dimittis right straight off, before anything comes up 
to nick the edges of your fame.” 

Amy's eyes showed her pleasure ; but she only laughed. 
Then, — 

“Wait until to-morrow night,” she bade them. 
“ Nothing will be settled until then.” 

“ What happens, to-morrow night? ” Jack asked her. 

But Sidney forestalled Amy's answer with her own. 

“ Chaos,” she said crisply. 

Amy yawned. 

“ Excuse me,” she said, in contrite haste. “ I really 
didn't sleep so very much, last night. When I did, 
I dreamed of Janet.” 

“ What about me? ” Janet once more stuck up her 
head. 

“ Merely that you and the President were turning 
handsprings. It was a race between you to Kingsley's 


290 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


and back. If you won, you were to treat all the cast to 
ice cream soda.” 

“Hm! And if he did?” 

“ He was to treat the faculty. They were lined up 
on the opposite side of the walk and — What's the 
word, Rob? Rooting?” 

Lord Axmuthy, his spoon in one hand, his sandwich 
in the other, eyed her, agape. 

“ Really, Miss Pope, how very extraordinary your 
college customs are! When did you say this race is 
coming off? ” 

“ Speaking of chaos,” Amy remarked, after Day had 
delivered prolix explanation to Lord Axmuthy; “ do 
any of you girls realize the delights of this present 
peaceful scene? I only wish all commencement could 
be like it.” 

“ Amy! ” Janet made horrified expostulation. 

“ But I do,” she persisted. “ All the functions, of 
course; but just us to enjoy them. Do you take in the 
fact that I have nineteen relatives, some of them very 
collateral ones, descending on me in the course of the 
day, to-morrow? ” 

“ If you didn't want them, why in the world did you 
ask them, then? ” 

“ Manners,” Amy replied tersely. 

“ For my part, I should prefer to be sincere.” Quite 
obviously it was Phyllis who spoke, and her accent had 
more than a trace of her old nippy brevity. 

Lord Axmuthy caught the accent with manifest 
alarm. 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


291 


“ Oh, yes. Yes, of course/' he assented hurriedly. 
Then he drained his cup to the very dregs, eyeing Phyllis 
uneasily, the while, from above the crowned initials 
on its exposed lower surface. 

“ I was sincere enough/' Amy answered indolently. 
“ How could I know they'd all be so misguided as to 
come? Some of them are people I've never even seen, 
friends of my mother and that sort of thing.'’ 

“ And they are coming? " Day's tone betrayed her 
incredulity. 

“ Yes. One skittish damsel of sixty-three is coming 
all the way from Denver, c on purpose to see Lillian's 
baby girl get her sheepskin.' " Amy's voice supplied 
all necessary quote marks. “ In fact, they all seem to 
count on seeing my fingers clutch that sheepskin. If 
only they would call it a diploma! " Amy added, with a 
patient sigh. 

“ It's only a misguided sense of humour, Amy. But 
what will you do with such a caravan? " 

“ Allow the best two to look on at the ceremony, while 
the other seventeen sit it out on the grass outside," Amy 
made callous answer. 

Phyllis, dropping her spoon, gently nudged Lord Ax- 
muthy to call his attention to the fact. Unhappily for 
all of them, Lord Axmuthy mistook the signal. Instead 
of rescuing the missing spoon, he turned to Amy with 
what he obviously intended for obedient promptness. 

“ I say, don't you suppose that I could help to enter- 
tain some of them for you? " he queried amicably. 

Am y eyed him for a speechless moment. Then, — 


292 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


“ 1 shouldn't wonder if you could/' she replied, with 
absolute, unsmiling gravity. 

And then, in mercy to them all, Sidney started to her 
feet, by way of breaking up the little party. 

The good byes said to Mrs. Leslie, Phyllis abandoned 
his lordship to his meditations, and placed herself at 
Jack Blanchard’s side. 

“ Jack, I want to talk," she told him, with a hint of 
her old brusque directness. 

With a word to the others, he turned to Phyllis and 
stood before her, looking down at her and smiling. 

“ Yes, Phil, what now? " he said, and his voice had 
the kindly ring that matched his eyes so well. 

“ Let's take a little walk," she said. “ That is, if 
you can spare the time. I'm only a freshman, I know, 
and don't count for much. But then — " 

Again he smiled at her, not mirthfully, but with a 
kindly inquiry, as if encouraging her to have her way. 

“ It looks shady up that side street," he suggested, 
after he had waited in vain for her to speak again. 
“ What if we walk up that way? " 

Phyllis nodded, and together they set out, she bare- 
headed in the dappled sun and shade, he with a small 
gray cap cocked on one corner of his head. Side by 
side, they looked curiously alike in age, for Jack’s 
cap turned him to the likeness of a boy, and the face 
of Phyllis was lined with thought of all the things she 
wished to say. At first, she shrank from saying them; 
but finally they came out with a jerk. 

“ Jack," she began abruptly, after they had paced on 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


293 


in silence for some distance; “ all this afternoon, I’ve 
been watching your scar, and wondering — ’’ 

The colour flew into his cheeks, and, with a half 
involuntary gesture, he drew his cap forward; but his 
smile never faded. 

“ Wondering, Phil? ” he asked her. 

“ Whether I'd made good," she answered briefly. 

For a minute, he failed to grasp the course her thought 
had taken. 

“ Made good? ’’ His accent was a little blank. 

“ Yes," she said impatiently. “ Just that, made 
good. Don’t you remember, Jack, how I told you then, 
the time we were burned, that I’d do my level best to 
have the day come when you’d say it had been worth 
your while? " 

Intently now the steady brown eyes rested on her 
face, reading all the unuttered questionings that lay 
behind her words. 

“ Yes, Phil. I do. But I said it then, child." 

“ I know you did; but that was just the — the 
Jackishness of your point of view. Can’t you say it a 
little bit more sincerely now? ’’ The girl’s voice rough- 
ened with her own repressed emotion. 

For a long minute, the brown eyes seemed to Phyllis 
to be looking her through and through, taking the men- 
tal measure, not of what she was, but rather of what 
she sought to be. Then Jack held out his hand. 

“ Phil," he said; “ you’ve always had it in you. Now 
you are growing up to yourself, and it’s bound to come 
out. If you keep on, the time will come when I shall 


294 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


call the scar, in all seriousness, what Day calls it now in 
fun: my badge of honour, won in your loyal service.” 

Phyllis bit her lip. 

“ Fdo try, Jack. It isn’t always easy.” 

“ No, Phil. I don’t find it so, myself,” he told her 
gravely. 

“ But, once you begin to get the things you want, 
it isn’t nearly so hard,” she said reflectively. 

“ And you are getting them? I’m glad, Phil.” 

“ Yes.” Her head upon one side, she looked up at 
him with something of the manner of a wise old parrot. 
“ I am getting a good many things, nowadays. Some 
of them I want now, like my Monthly stories; some 
of them — I may get to want them by and by; but 
Jack — ” 

“ Jack,” Amy hailed him, with a leisurely unconcern 
which gave no hint of the breathless course she had 
taken around the curve of Crescent Street; “ I do 
hate to break in on Phil’s good time; but I’m going to 
be busy, every single instant of to-morrow, and I do 
want to get a little good of you, myself.” 

It was the old, frank, cordial Amy who had halted 
in his pathway and was smiling at him with lips and 
eyes so nearly on a level with his own, lips a little tremu- 
lous, eyes sweet and true and girlish in their unveiled 
gaze. 

Phyllis nodded, with a gruff gentleness. 

“ All right, Amy. I’ve had my turn, and finished what 
I had to say. Where are the others? ” 

“ Down on the campus, all but Lord Axmuthy. He 


SIDNEY : HER SENIOR YEAR 


295 


was sitting on the Leslie house veranda, when I came 
away.” 

“ Poor thing! I'd better go and find him.” And 
Phyllis departed on her errand. 

Amy looked after her with merry eyes. 

“It's funny, Jack; isn't it? Desperately funny? 
And yet, it's the same old story in another kind of 
cover.” 

A half hour later, they came straying slowly home- 
ward. Jack looked curiously content, and Amy was 
beaming with her happiness. At the foot of the steps, 
they halted, and Amy held out her hand. 

“ I wanted to tell it first to you, Jack,” she said, 
still with the hearty, friendly frankness that of old 
had marked her manner to him. 

His fingers shut on hers. 

“ Thank you, Aony. It was like you.” 

“ And, besides, there's something else I want to 
tell you,” she added gravely; “ something that goes 
back into last winter and lasted all the spring. I didn’t 
understand things then; things, nor you. I was hurt, 
and cross, and tired, and I took it very badly. I know 
you better now, know you by way of Day and, a little 
bit, by watching Ronald. I know now it all came out 
of your sense of honour, came because you thought we 
might misunderstand.” 

“ Amy,” steadily he looked her in the eyes; “ have 
I been acting like an utter cad? ” 

“ Never! ” Her accent left no room for doubt. “ You 
did the only honest thing you could have done. Be- 


296 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


sides / 7 a smile broke through her gravity, and a faint 
pink flush arose across her cheeks; “ if you hadn’t 
acted as you did, Jack, the — the other part of it might 
not have been.” 

Jack’s hand tightened over her fingers. 

“ Amy,” he said; “ you’re rather broad.” And then 
quite inconsequently he added, “ And be sure you 
hand on my remarks to Leslie.” 


CHAPTER TWENTY -ONE 


“■pOB, we’re beginning to grow up/’ Day said to 

XX him a little sadly, the next morning. 

“ You don’t say! ” Rob gazed at his tall sister quiz- 
zically. “ Now, if you’d asked my opinion earlier, Day, 
I’d have told you we had already made quite a start 
at it.” 

“ Some of us have.” Again there came the little ring 
of sadness in the tone. 

This time, it caught Rob’s ear. 

“ What’s the row, Aurora? ” 

“No row,” she told him. “ I only hate the growing 
up. I suppose I’ve had too good a time as a girl.” 

“ Where do you feel it most poignantly? ” Rob queried, 
for he had no mind to allow the unwonted sadness to 
i linger in Day’s voice. 

“ Everywhere, this morning. I keep seeing things 
I’ll have to say good bye to, this next week.” 

“ You’ll come back,” Rob reassured her. 

But Day shook her head. 

“ It never will be quite the same,” she answered 
gloomily, for she had as yet to learn that college life 
holds nothing better in its gift than the right to return, 
an hilarious and irresponsible alumna, to be welcomed 
and made much of by the later classes. 


298 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


Some part of this fact must have penetrated the 
senior brain of Rob, however, for he made cheery 
reply, — 

“ Lots better, though. When you come back, you’ll 
have all the fun and none of the fuss.” 

“ But it’s the fuss I like,” Day said, a little contra- 
dictorily. “ That’s part.” 

Rob laughed. 

“ How do you know, Day? You’ve never hurt your- 
self with too much study? ” Then his tone changed. 
“ Day, you are tired,” he challenged her. 

“ Not so tired, Rob ; only a little blue at leaving things, 
and the girls. Besides, the changes have begun already. 
As I say, we’re growing up.” 

“ What makes you think so? ” 

“ I was talking with Amy, late last night,” Day said, 
with apparent inconsequence. “ She came over here to 
spend the night with Sidney and me.” 

Rob’s face cleared. 

“ Oh,” he said; “ methinks I have the clue to your 
fit of oversoul.” But his next words betrayed the fact 
that he did not understand it in the very least, for 
he added, “ If I were in your place, Day, I’d shut myself 
up, this morning, and take a good, long nap, before the 
hosts arrive. Jack and I will meet the family, this 
afternoon. Really, you must rest up a little for to- 
night.” 

No sign there was, that night, however, that Day 
Argyle needed rest, as, amid the other fairies of Ti- 
tania’s train, she came tripping out across the Athenian 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


299 


woodland. Lightly, gracefully she danced forward 
among the mossy mounds, her lithe young body swaying 
gently in time to the lilt of the elfish theme that met 
her from across the footlights. So intent was she 
upon her part, that most thankless, useful part of all, 
the sinking of her entire identity in the artistic good 
of the common whole, that she had the scantest possible 
realization of the audience who faced her, a kindly audi- 
ence, but grown critical from much living on the best 
of things, and of that fragment of the audience composed 
of her own especial group of friends. Just once she lifted 
her eyes, eyes from which all hint of sadness had been 
burned away by the spark of excitement, to the front 
corner of the balcony where she knew their places had 
been held. They were all there, she knew; but, out of 
all the eager rows of faces turned upon the stage, two 
only caught her eye, Rob's, Jack Blanchard's, both 
intently watching, waiting to catch her glance and 
answer it. Under her make-up, her cheeks glowed, and 
her eyes brightened until she looked, as indeed she felt, 
the happiest of fairies possible. 

The theatre was crammed from the stage to the very 
doors. The open exits leading to the fire escapes were 
half blocked with girls, front rank of a solid line that 
reached down to the street below. Knots of white- 
wanded ushers sat on the steps of the steeper aisles, 
and a standing row of belated alumnae, still in travelling 
frocks and hats, fringed the more daintily clad audience 
in the seats before them. 

All day long, the throngs of adoring relatives and loyal 


300 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


friends had poured into the lazy old valley town, throngs 
from Boston and New York and from all the western 
cities. Distance seemed to be no barrier, nor age, nor 
yet extreme remoteness of connection with the gradu- 
ating class. To all appearing, everybody came who 
could get an invitation, and some few others who could 
not. Every in-coming train shed its crowd. The station 
was a shrieking bedlam of sound: strident shouts and 
whistles, banging trunks, profane porters, and, above 
all and in all, the unbroken hum of greetings and of 
anxious queries concerning missing luggage. 

Into this chaos, the private car Aurora had come 
sliding to its destined side track, that Saturday after- 
noon, to be promptly boarded by Jack Blanchard. 

“ Day is tired, and resting for to-night,” he explained 
to Mrs. Argyle. “ I told her Fd come and look out for 
you, in her place. Rob and Sidney are on the way,” 
he added, to a quartette of waiting Stayres. “ How 
goes it, Amy? Ready for the fray? ” And he gave his 
hand to a dainty, fluffy little blonde who stood at Mr. 
Argyle's side. 

She laughed up into his face, with every showing of 
cordial liking. 

“ DkhTt I tell you Fd be home in time? I landed, 
yesterday morning, rushed my trunks through the 
custom house, and here I am.” 

“ I thought you'd make it. Day is delighted at your 
caring enough to try. Her one wail has been over the 
chance of losing you,” Jack told her with a perfect 
truth, for Amy Browne had been Day Argyle’s earliest 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


301 


friend, her close friend from the days of their christen- 
! ing parties onward. 

“ Of course, I was coming. It would have spoiled 
all manner of traditions, if I hadn't. Are all the Quebec 
crowd here? " 

“ All but mother. Day asked her; but she couldn't 
well come over. Wade and Irene came up, yesterday, 
you know." 

“ And Paul? " 

“ Here, this morning." 

Amy's face grew very impish. 

“ And Lady Wadhams? " she inquired over her 
shoulder, just as Mr. Argyle called her to a waiting 
carriage. 

And then Rob and Sidney swept down upon them, 
and coherent talk of any sort was at an end. 

That night, by careful planning, one little comer of 
the balcony had been set apart that they might sit all 
together: the Stayres and Argyles and the Leslies, 
with Amy Pope's nineteen collateral relatives sand- 
wiched in among them. Amy Browne sat with Jack, that 
evening; and, in the aisle seat where she could come and 
go at pleasure, Sidney had kept a place for herself, with 
Rob beside her. In the rear of the balcony sat the 
Winthrops, Irene and her husband; and, at the topmost 
pinnacle of all, Phyllis, with Lord Axmuthy in. close 
attendance, watched the play intently, rejoicing, the 
while, in her kinship to the senior president which made 
it possible for her, a freshman, to be present on this 
greatest night of all. 


302 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


It was a great night, too. Even the most jaded of 
the critics admitted it, while they watched the per- 
formance move onward to its smooth, artistic close, 
while they studied the setting of the stage, as skilful 
and by far more dainty and lavish of detail than that 
arranged by professional hands. Even the comic inter- 
lude, so easily turned to mere buffoonery, left them 
with the contented sense of humour born of true comedy, 
not farce. And, at the final coming of the fairies, trip- 
ping down the broad steps of Titania’s house, the ap- 
plause died away into the breathless silence which 
carries in its hush the most eloquent of praise. 

The hush lasted through Oberon’s song, lasted while 
the fairies, dancing, wavering, turning, tripped away 
up the stairway and vanished in the dimming distance. 
Then, if possible, it deepened, while the lights grew low 
and lower, until the stage was all in heavy darkness, 
save for the one electric beam which lay full on the 
face of Puck ; and Puck , in thin, sweet voice, strangely 
remote and unearthly, spoke the little apologetic epi- 
logue, down to its closing lines, — 

“ So, good night unto you all. 

Give me your hands, if we be friends, 

And Robin will restore amends.” 

The voice died away, and, with it, the single beam of 
light. For a hushed moment, the theatre lay in utter 
darkness. Then the lights flared up again, and, with the 
lights, there came applause, a volley of enthusiastic cheer- 
ing which lifted up one's gooseflesh and set the lights to 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


303 


dancing. The girl actors had scored an entire success; 
they had held their crowded audience to the very finish, 
held them and thrilled them. The class had added yet 
another laurel to their crown. The play was done and 
over; but not the afterpiece. 

That started, as it always does on those Saturday 
nights of dramatics, from a little group of girls huddled 
into the front seats close beside the orchestra. From 
there it was caught up into the boxes, and thence passed 
outward to the expectant throng now packed about 
the upper levels of the fire escapes, a voice or two at 
first, then a chorus of girl voices, rising to a shout, 
distinct, clearly spaced and rhythmic. 

“ We — want — Janet — Leslie! ” 

At the first sound of the well-known phrase, the ap- 
plause ended, cut off sharply by the expectation of the 
audience who sat there, waiting to see the outcome 
of the great tradition of the college year. 

There was a little pause, the shortest possible delay. 
Then the cry rose again, louder, more insistent. 

“ We — want — Janet — Leslie! ” 

Then Janet came. Her brown eyes were blazing 
with the excited realization that upon her inconspicuous 
self had fallen the crowning honour of the cast, the first 
summons before the audience. She came on quietly, 
as if half dazed by the greatness of her unexpected 
triumph, walked a good third of the way across the 
stage before she seemed to take in her surroundings. 
Then, with a gay little nod to the sea of faces before her, 
she ran to the middle of the stage, turned a swift hand- 


304 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


spring and then tossed a mocking little kiss up to the 
balcony where her group of friends sat watching. And, 
as the kiss left her lips, every other pair of student lips 
took up the refrain whose very crudity is hallowed 
by countless associations. 


“ There is a girl who's known in all parts, 

Her name is Janet Leslie, and she's won our hearts. 

Oh, we'd like to know a girl with more go, 

And we’ll all stand by her till the end, oh! ” 

A veritable Puck until the end, Janet veiled her face 
with her two hands, and peeped out at them mockingly 
from between her fingers, while the verse shook the 
hot, dazzling air with its rhythmic beat. Then, with 
another caper, another nod, another kiss flung vaguely 
upward, Janet Leslie vanished to gloat in secret over 
her unlooked-for triumph. 

Then, the chief star greeted and dismissed with 
frantic cheering, the fun went its way in good earnest, 
loud and long and hearty, while even the oldest gradu- 
ates caught the spirit and lifted their voices into ran- 
dom approximations of the songs; while the outsiders, 
looking on, longing to sing and not quite daring to do it, 
drummed out the rhythm with fans and with opera 
glasses and with booted heels. One by one in order of 
their greatness, the actors were called out, the indi- 
viduals of the cast, then even an occasional fairy or two. 
First one of these, Day Argyle found herself summoned 
to show herself and hailed with her freshman couplet. 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


305 


“ Here’s to Day Argyle! 

You may know her by her smile.” 

And, while she stood before the footlights, smiling 
and nodding gayly at the girls, Mrs. Argyle, in the 
balcony, was fanning herself in a species of nervous 
frenzy and doing her best to force her face into an 
expression indicative of the most impartial criticism. 

Then Titania came, afterwards by reason of Day’s 
freshman presidency; and then all the fairies in a merry 
group. That over, there came a fresh access of insist- 
ence in the summons. 

“ We — want — Amy — Pope! ” 

There followed a long delay. As it chanced, Amy was 
unhooking Puck from a projecting nail in the scenery; 
but the audience, who could not be expected to be 
aware of this fact, grew impatient. 

“ We — want — Amy — Pope! ” 

Ronald Leslie began to fidget in his seat. 

“ We — want — Amy — Pope! ” 

The blood rushed up across Ronald’s face. People 
from across the balcony began to point their glasses at 
the handsome young giant, so obviously growing rest- 
less over the delay. 

“ We — want — Amy — Pope! ” 

“ By Jove, I can’t stand this! ” And Ronald, start- 
ing to his feet, edged swiftly towards the aisle. 

At the aisle, however, he halted suddenly. Amy had 
just come on, laughing a little still over her futile efforts 
to free Puck , and wearing the same simple pink linen 


306 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


frock she had put on, that morning, when she had sal- 
lied forth to meet the first of the nineteen collaterals. 
Nodding gayly at her friends close at her feet, she came 
forward with the same frank unconcern she might have 
shown at any of the rehearsals; but her unconcern 
vanished speedily, at sight and sound of the ovation 
that awaited her, a formless, chaotic mixture of clapping 
hands and waving wands and flapping feather boas, 
and little strident cries of rapturous salutation, which 
little by little lost itself behind the rising chorus, — 

“ Amy Po - ope I Amy Po - ope ! 

We are singing, praises ringing, 

We shall never find your equal, 

Amy Po - ope, here's to you! ” 

“Jove! They’re singing Boola ,” Rob Argyle sought 
to make muffled exclamation into Sidney’s ear; but, 
to his extreme surprise, Sidney was not to be seen. 

She had not vanished for long, however. No sooner 
had Amy left the stage, than the clamour rose anew, 
louder, far more eager, even, than it had been before. 

“ We — want — Sidney — Stayre! ” 

With the slightest possible delay, she came and stood 
before them, tall and slight and girlish in her thin white 
frock, yet with a touch, withal, of something akin to 
the dignity of a full-grown woman in her face and bear- 
ing. And, at her coming, instinctively and by no pre- 
conceived arrangement, every senior in the audience 
rose up to greet her, while the actors in the wings came 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


307 


flocking forward, to join in the ovation to their presi- 
dent. 

“ Sidney Sta - ayre ! Sidney Sta - ayre ! 

We are singing, praises ringing.” 

This time, up in his corner of the balcony, Rob Argyle 
was singing with full-throated vehemence this unex- 
pected adaptation of the favourite old war cry of his 
university rival. 

" We shall never find your equal, 

Sidney Sta -ayre, here’s to you! ” 

Nervously Sidney’s hands shut hard upon each other, 
and her breath came short. She stood there motionless, 
however, steadying herself as best she might against 
the storm of applause, and trying in vain to realize 
that it was all for her, for just herself, Sidney Stayre. 
But, all the time she stood there, her gray eyes, albeit 
a little misty, never wavered from their resting place 
upon the true blue eyes of Rob Argyle. 

Later, and limping a good deal more than usual by 
reason of the reaction from his extreme excitement, 
Rob sought Sidney in the wings. Boyishly, almost 
shyly, he held out his hand to her. 

“ After all, though, there’s not much left for me to 
say,” he told her. 

Her smile was still a little tremulous. 

“ Wasn’t it astounding, Rob? ” she asked him. “ I 
can’t understand it in the least.” 

He looked at her steadily, for just a minute. Then, — 

“ I can,” he said briefly. 


308 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


Around them, the chaos was increasing fast with 
every instant. Theatre attendants in dingy drilling, 
actors with opera capes huddled on above their costumes, 
seniors in brave array, white-gowned, white-wanded 
junior ushers, and adoring friends by scores and hun- 
dreds were crowding to and fro, jostling, pushing, call- 
ing to one another in every form of greeting, congratula- 
tion, information and of merry nonsense. In such a 
human maelstrom, it was wellnigh useless to seek for 
any individual, and Sidney knew it. None the less, — 

“ Shall we try to hunt up Day? ” she asked. 

“ I told Jack to look out for her,” Rob answered. 

“ Then shall we go? ” Sidney questioned. “ This will 
be getting worse, every minute. Unless you care to see 
it out, that is.” 

Smiling, Rob shook his head in silence, for the babel 
which surrounded them made words of but little 
use. 

“ I think .you’d best take my arm, till we get outside,” 
he added, while he illustrated his meaning by taking her 
hand and sliding it inside his elbow. “ This way? 
Come along, then.” And cautiously he began edging 
his way towards the nearest door. 

At the door, however, a surprise awaited him. To his 
masculine eyes, it seemed that the entire college was 
lined up in the street, waiting to acclaim the actors as 
they appeared. Sidney’s advent was the signal for a 
fresh ovation. 

“ Sidney Sta - ayre ! Sidney Sta - ayre ! ” 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


309 


they warbled in a frantic chorus whose tuneful quality 
was fast losing itself in extreme hoarseness. 

“ We are singing, praises ringing, 

We shall never find your equal. ” 

“ You bet not, Sidney! ” Rob echoed, sotto voce . “ I’m 
beginning to understand what it is to be truly famous.” 

But Sidney had forgotten herself and her fame in the 
nearer, more practical issue. 

“ Look out for the step, Rob! ” she besought him. 
“ We can’t have you spraining yourself and getting 
laid up just now.” And then, the steps passed by in 
safety, she freed her hand from his arm and waved it 
to her cheering friends, just as the last hoarse, hilarious 
note died away, — 

" Sidney Sta - ayre, here's to you! ” 

And then, with Rob Argyle beside her, she passed 
swiftly through the crowd and turned out from among 
them, along her destined way. The cheering followed 
her, however; but, to the stalwart Harvard senior 
limping along at her side, it seemed that all the great 
ovation had given no such clue to Sidney’s character 
as had her little thoughtful care for him, just when, 
by good rights, her whole attention might have been 
engrossed by the applause showered down upon her 
from hundreds of enthusiastic college girls. 

Half way up the little hill, Rob halted, breaking in 
upon their leisurely pace, breaking, too, their desultory 


310 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


conversation. Turning about, he looked back upon the 
parti-coloured crowd, now streaming away in all di- 
rections. 

“ Sidney, it has been a great old night,” he told her, 
and his voice was full of deep content. 

“ You felt it, too? ” She spoke with quick enthusiasm. 
“ The class has left a record for itself for all time.” 

“ Class be hanged! ” he answered. “ I was thinking 
about the way they have been cheering you.” 

In the light of a street lamp close at hand, her eyes 
met his eyes with a look of amused shame. 

“ Rob, should you despise me for all time to come,” 
she asked him frankly; “if I confessed to you — just 
you, you know — that I never was more surprised and 
— well, delighted in my life? ” 

“ Being human, you couldn’t well help it, Sidney,” 
he told her coolly. “ However, I doubt if you cared for 
it one half as much as I did.” 

“I — ” she was beginning; but he cut her short. 

“ Sidney,” he said, as, turning to face forward, he 
once more moved onward at her side; “ I did enjoy it, 
enjoy it whole lots. And now there’s something else 
I want to say to you, something I’ve been waiting until 
to-night to say. It’s not especially romantic, I suppose, 
for a fellow to start out, making love to the girl who 
has been his best chum for years. But, Sidney — ” 

“ Yes, Rob? ” 

However, no question was in Sidney Stayre’s mind, 
as she spoke. 


CHAPTER TWENTY -TWO 


“ X THINK I was never so happy in all my life/ , 

-L Day said, after Rob had told them, the next night. 

Sidney smiled. 

“ What do you think of me? ” she queried. 

“ Oh, yes, of course,” Day answered. “ Only I have 
been so afraid it wouldn't really happen.” 

Sidney, enveloped in her loosened hair, spun about 
to face Day in righteous indignation. 

“ How could anybody help loving Rob? ” she de- 
manded. “ Or did you think he wasn't going to love 
me? ” 

Day laughed, while she shook her head. 

“ It was perfectly evident that he was, Sidney. My 
only fear has been that you'd both of you get too much 
into the loving habit, while it was too soon to have it 
do you any good.” 

“ What do you mean? ” 

But Day refused to explain herself. 

After a little silence, Sidney spoke again, slowly, 
thoughtfully. 

“ Day, if you only knew just what it all is! ” 

“ But I do,” Day said serenely. “ I have eyes, and 
I have watched the two of you beam and beam and 
beam, all day long.” 


312 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


“ But I don't mean that way," Sidney persisted. “ I 
mean for yourself." 

Again Day shook her head. Her voice, when she 
answered, was perfectly matter-of-fact, betraying neither 
wounded sentiment, nor any envy. 

“ No use, Sidney. I am cut out for single blessedness. 
I'll be an adorable maiden aunt, though, and dam all 
your family stockings, when I come to visit you." 
Then, dismissing her matter-of-factness, she rose from 
her seat on the edge of the bed, and cast herself on Sid- 
ney's neck. “I am so happy, Sidney, so glad for you 
and Rob, that I believe my life can't hold another bit 
of enjoyment." 

Nevertheless, it could. 

This little talk had taken place on Sunday night. The 
girls had gone early to their room, glad to make the 
most of the too-short rest which intervenes between 
dramatics on the one hand and the more serious business 
of commencement on the other. Save for the inevitable 
excitement of the baccalaureate- sermon, they had 
spent the day quite quietly, for the most part talking idly 
with their assembled families at one end of the Tyler 
House veranda. Just once had the morning's quiet 
been disturbed, however. That had been when Mr. 
Argyle had taken advantage of a momentary pause to 
announce the surprise he had been holding in store: 
that he had included Sidney Stayre in making up his 
plans for their European summer. 

“ My ancestors were thrifty Scotsmen, and I take after 
them," he said nonchalantly, at the finish of his tidings. 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


313 


“ It seemed to me rather a pity to waste a whole room 
on Day, through all the trip, when Sidney might as 
well be on hand to save it.” 

And, in the clamour of rejoicing that came after, 
no one had any time to note the little smile that passed 
between Sidney Stayre and Rob Argyle. 

It had been agreed between them that their news, 
their great surprise of all, should be withheld until the 
evening when, baccalaureate over, and vespers, they all 
would once more be together, this time in the great up- 
stairs room where Day and Sidney were finishing their 
college days. The result showed the wisdom of their 
plan. No decorum, born of a more public place, could 
ever have held down the chorus of delighted congratula- 
tion when Rob, simply, but in a man-like fashion, told 
his good news, and then, turning to Mr. Stayre, made 
formal demand for Sidney’s hand. 

“ You might as well, you know,” he argued gravely, 
at the finish of his more formal phrase. “ She’s given 
me her heart, you know, and her hand won’t be any 
good to you, without it.” 

And so it came to pass that, the next morning, Sidney 
Stayre, leading the ivy procession of her class, seemed 
to herself to be walking forward in a beautiful dream 
in which the happenings of a joyous girlhood were in- 
extricably tangled into one wellnigh perfect whole, 
a whole whose absolute perfection found itself in the 
one great consummating fact of the day before. Above 
her head, the June sun came slanting down, to turn the 
air to shimmering gold, to gild great patches of the 


314 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


open lawns about her, to cast upon her glowing face its 
softer beams, sifted of their gaudiness by the fluttering 
elm leaves overhead. Behind her came the great line 
of girls, two and two, two and two, all white-gowned, 
each one carrying by way of staff a single long-stemmed 
rose, type of the true American beauty, not alone of 
face and form, but of sweetness as well, and strength, 
and of perfect, symmetrical maturity: a long, long line 
of loyal, enthusiastic girls whose wish it had been that 
she should walk before them, all that year, their chosen 
chief and leader. And beside her, on the little hill which 
overlooked their starting, stood a tall, yellow-haired 
young giant whose honest, happy blue eyes, sweeping 
up the long, long line, were blind to every face but one, 
and that one hers. And so it was that, smiling a little, 
a little dreamy-eyed, yet very tall and quiet, with the 
long line winding away behind her, guarded on either 
side by the trailing ropes of laurel borne on the shoulders 
of the junior ushers: so it was that Sidney Stay re 
moved slowly forward along the canvas-covered path- 
way leading out across the campus, leading, too, out 
of her merry college girlhood, out and out to the 
still greater happiness of the womanhood awaiting 
her. 

That night, a spirit of revelry appeared to have broken 
out upon the campus. From end to end of the great 
enclosure, each walk was bordered with its double 
row of swinging paper lanterns; trees were converted 
into blazing bunches of lights, while, from the windows 
of the houses dotted here and there amid the lawns, 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


315 


electric lamps shone down in long, slanting beams across 
the softer lights below. 

Out from the open windows of the Students’ Building, 
far at the rear of the campus, there came the lazy lilt 
of an orchestra and the soft hum of voices, showing that 
a few staid souls were inside the building, dutifully 
paying court to president and faculty, after the time- 
honoured custom of parents and the sedater sort of 
friends. All the rest of the world seemed gathered on 
the campus, which was dotted thickly over with swirling, 
rushing bits of crowd that fell apart into separate groups, 
then packed themselves together into a solid mass, only 
to fall apart again and go drifting aimlessly about until, 
often at the remotest corner of the campus, some sudden 
burst of singing, some new formation of the wavering 
lights and vivid gowns, sent the whole mass swarming 
thither in all haste. Seniors, locked arm in arm, pranced 
and sang and marched and ran. Staid members of re- 
turning classes, clad in fantastic costumes, green and 
yellow, violet or brilliant scarlet, marched and counter- 
marched about the campus, swinging their lanterns and 
singing to whatever class they chanced to meet; then, 
years and dignity alike forgotten, joined hands in a long 
line and went dashing away among the buildings in a 
mad chase for other worlds to conquer. Scarlet gowns 
and mortarboards rubbed against huge violet hats with 
little electric lamps by way of trimming. Green opera 
capes fluttered in the night breeze, turning their wearers 
to the likeness of a bevy of lunar moths; and, amid all 
the vivid costumes, the pale summer frocks of the un- 


316 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


costumed seniors stood out in strong relief. Meanwhile, 
lurking in the shadows of shrubbery and trees, the more 
formal evening costumes of the guests furnished the 
note of vigorous contrast which merely set off the bril- 
liancy of all the rest of this academic carnival. For 
carnival it was, its actors all more or less beside them- 
selves with the real Smith spirit which seizes on one, 
now and then, potent to make one quite forget the 
years and changes, and revel in the sheer consciousness 
of being at least one little, little part of the great college 
whole, loyal to all the past, trustful for all the future. 

The fun was at its height when Day Argyle, dropping 
from her place in the front rank of singing, dancing 
seniors, fell in with Jack Blanchard. 

“ Where now? " he asked her, with a smile, for, all 
that evening, at Rob's side, he had been watching the 
senior antics from afar; all that evening, quite as Rob 
had done, watching, he had seen but the one eager, 
girlish face in all the throng before him. 

“ Trying to get just one little bit of breath, before I 
go at it again," she gasped. “ I think I must be growing 
fat and lazy. Where are you bound? " 

“ I was just trying to see if I could find Janet any- 
where," he answered. “ I — " 

But, without waiting for the finish of his phrase, 
Day caught him by the arm. 

“ Quick! " she said. “ This way, and as fast as you 
can. Run ! " 

Laughing, flushed, breathless, her pale hair loosened 
about her face, and her elaborate frock, fit for a duchess. 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


317 


kilted about her like any washerwoman, Day led the 
way up the main drive which cuts the campus, with 
Jack, dutiful, but somewhat mystified, following at her 
heels. Once she turned her head to look back at him 
gayly, mockingly. 

“ The front lawn, by the President’s steps,” she said. 
“ Can you keep up? ” 

From far across the campus, there still came random 
bits of song. 

“Just the college. 

Just the college we sing to, 

Just the college, 

You’re just the college for us.” 

And again, — 

“ And gladly singing to you always, 

Our loyal hearts with joy shall fill. 

Oh, fairest, fairest Alma Mater, 

You hold and claim us still.” 

Then, all at once, the bits of song had died away, and 
the hundreds of moving lights had rushed forward from 
all directions to converge upon the central walk which 
runs straight from the president’s house down to the 
Students’ Building in the rear. There, crowded and 
huddled together as they best might be, scarlet gown 
and green cape and uncostumed senior, they bordered 
the long straight path in two thick lines, a loyal, loving 
guard of honour, awaiting the slim, venerable figure 
they all loved so well. Smiling and bowing, pleased as 
a boy by this sudden, impromptu ovation in his honour, 


318 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


he came slowly forward, escorted by a squad of violet- 
hatted alumnae, while the waiting crowd greeted him 
with cheers and songs and swaying lanterns, stood to 
greet him as he passed onward, then fell in behind him, 
while the quiet of the summer night was torn across and 
across with the couplet so dear to the heart of every 
loyal graduate who has known the one wise ruler who 
has made the college what it is. 

At the little cross-walk, leading up to the presidential 
steps, the throng halted and packed itself more closely 
for a final repetition of their song. It died away to 
silence. 

“ Good night,” the President said; and then, in a 
hush more loyal even than the singing, his escort 
stepped aside, to leave him to pass on alone up through an 
arch of swaying paper lanterns held on high by scores 
of girlish hands. 

At the foot of the steps, he turned. 

“ Good night,” he said again, and, this time, the deep 
voice broke a very little. 

There came the answering cry, but not too clearly, — 

“ Good night! Good night! ” 

And then the silence dropped and lasted, until the 
shutting behind him of the heavy door. 

From their places close at the foot of the steps, Jack 
and Day watched the scene to its end, watched the 
great throng melt away, silent, perchance a little moved. 
Then impulsively Day turned to Jack, her brown eyes 
glowing hotly, although their long lashes were still 
moist. 


SIDNEY : HER SENIOR YEAR 


319 


“ It’s a perfect ending/’ she said, with a slow, happy 
sigh. “ Jack, college has been one of the four best 
things of all my life.” 

“ What are the others? ” he queried lightly, for as 
yet he had no notion whither her next words were going 
to lead. 

They led far. 

“ The four? ” she echoed, with a smile. “ You want 
to know? Well, the being born, and the having Rob 
for brother, and now college — ” She hesitated, then 
stuck fast, and, even in the fitful light of the dangling, 
swaying lanterns, Jack could see a sudden scarlet tide 
roll up across her cheeks. 

“ That’s only three,” he reminded her, as they turned 
to walk away together. “ What’s the other? ” 

“ The having you about,” she added, with a brave 
effort for the careless unconcern she had been maintain- 
ing, for many and many a long month. 

His breath came short, caught, came short again. 

“ You really mean it, Day? ” he asked her swiftly. 

Her voice dropped to a murmur. 

“ Yes, Jack, I do.” Then she pulled herself together, 
and pointed off across the campus to a distant bit of 
lawn where a white-gowned girl was dancing in the 
thickest of the revel. “ Look, Jack! There’s Janet 
now,” she told him. 

But Jack was once more master of himself; master, 
too, of some one else. 

“ Day, do you suppose I care about a dozen Janets, 
when I can stay with you? ” he asked her. 


320 


SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 


Then, with an air of complete possession, he took her 
hand and drew it within the protecting curve of his 
strong arm. 

“ It is for always, Day,” he told her gently; “ always 
and always. It’s the one thing for which I have been 
waiting and working, all these years.” 

And then, straight through the middle of the merry, 
mocking bands of revellers, under the swaying, swing- 
ing paper lanterns, wrapped in the new, grave dignity 
of their outspoken love, Jack Blanchard and Day Argyle 
went on together. 

Child-time had ended for them all. Maturity had 
come. 


THE END. 


“You gave us dreams, unnumbered, 
And life we had not known, 

And now, oh Alma Mater, 

We give you back your own, 

For memories, for friendships 
That bless each parting day, 

And toil unsought we render, 

And debt unasked we pay. * * 



ANNA CHAPIN RAY’S 

“SIDNEY” STORIES 


SIDNEY: HER SUMMER ON THE 
ST. LAWRENCE 

Illustrated by Alice Barber Stephens. i2mo. $1.50 

The young heroine is a forceful little maiden of sweet sixteen. The description 
of picnics in the pretty Canadian country are very gay and enticing, and Sidney 
and her friends are a merry group of wholesome young people. 

— Churchman , New York. 

JANET: HER WINTER IN QUEBEC 

Illustrated by Alice Barber Stephens. i2mo. $1.50 

Gives a delightful picture of Canadian life, and introduces a group of young people 
who are bright and wholesome and good to read about. — New York Globe. 

DAY: HER YEAR IN NEW YORK 

Illustrated by Harriet Roosevelt Richards. i2mo. $1.50 

A. good story, bright, readable, cheerful, natural, free from sentimentality. 

— New York Sun. 


SIDNEY AT COLLEGE 

Illustrated by Harriet Roosevelt Richards. i2mo. $1.50 

The book is replete with entertaining incidents of a young woman who \s passing 
through her freshman year at college . — Brooklyn Eagle. 

JANET AT ODDS 

Illustrated by Harriet Roosevelt Richards. i2mo. $1.50 

An ideal book for an American girl. It directs a girl’s attention to something 
beside the mere conventional side of life. It teaches her to be self-reliant. Its 
atmosphere is hopeful and helpful. — Boston Globe. 

SIDNEY: HER SENIOR YEAR 

Illustrated by Harriet Roosevelt Richards. i2mo. $1.50 

This delightful story completes the author’s charming and popular series of 
Sidney Books. Day, Janet, and a host of their bright friends meet again at Smith 
College, where Sidney is the President of the Senior Class, and their gayety fill 
the pages with spirited incidents. 


LITTLE, BROWN, fc? COMPANY, Publishers 

34 BEACON STREET, BOSTON, MASS. 


ANNA CHAPIN RAY’S 

“TEDDY” STORIES 


Miss Ray’s work draws instant comparison with the best of Miss Alcott’s: first, 
because she has the same genuine sympathy with boy and girl life ; secondly, 
because she creates real characters, individual and natural, like the young people 
one knows, actually working out the same kind of problems ; and, finally, because 
her style of writing is equally unaffected and straightforward. — Christian Register , 
Boston. 


TEDDY : HER BOOK. A Story of Sweet Sixteen 

Illustrated by Vesper L. George. i2mo. $1.50. 

This bewitching story of “Sweet Sixteen,” with its earnestness, impetuosity, 
merry pranks, and unconscious love for her hero, has the same spring-like charm. — 
Kate Sanborn. 

PHEBE: HER PROFESSION. A Sequel to“Teddy: 

Her Book” 

Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill. i2mo. $1.50. 

This is one of the few books written for young people in which there is to be 
found the same vigor and grace that one demands in a good story for older people. 
— Worcester Spy. 

TEDDY: HER DAUGHTER 

A Sequel to “Teddy: Her Book,” and “Phebe: Her Profession” 
Illustrated by J. B. Graff. i2mo. $1.50. 

It is a human story, all the characters breathing life and activity. — Buffalo Times. 

NATHALIE’S CHUM 

Illustrated by Ellen Bernard Thompson. i2mo. $1.50. 

Nathalie is the sort of a young girl whom other girls like to read about. — Hartford 
Courant. 

URSULA’S FRESHMAN. A Sequel to “Nathalie’s Chum” 

Illustrated by Harriet Roosevelt Richards. i2mo. $1.50. 

The best of a series already the best of its kind. — Boston Herald. 

NATHALIE’S SISTER. A Se ^ e l to “Ursula’s Fresh- 

man 

Illustrated by Alice Barber Stephens. i2mo. $1.50. 

Peggy, the heroine, is a most original little lady who says and does all sorts of 
interesting things. She has pluck and spirit, and a temper, but she is very lovable, 
and girls will find her delightful to read about.— Louisville Evening Post. 


LITTLE, BROWN, £tf COMPANY, Publishers 

34 BEACON ST., BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 


ANNA HAMLIN WEIKEL’S 

BETTY BAIRD SERIES 


BETTY BAIRD 

Illustrated by Ethel Pennewill Brown. i2mo. $1.50. 

A boarding school story, with a charming heroine, delightfully narrated. The book 
is lively and breezy throughout. — Philadelphia Press. 

A true presentment of girl life. — Chicago Evening Post. 

Betty is a heroine so animated and charming that she wins the reader’s affection at 
nnce. When she enters the boarding school she is shy, old-fashioned, and not quite 
so well-dressed as some of the other girls. It is not long, however, before her 
lovable character wins her many friends, and she becomes one of the most popular 
girls in the school. — Brooklyn Eagle. 

The illustrations, by Ethel Pennewill Brown, are remarkably successful in their 
portrayal of girlish spirit and charm. — New York Times. 

BETTY BAIRD’S VENTURES 

Illustrated by Ethel Pennewill Brown. i2mo. $1.50. 

Will please the girls who liked the piquant and original Betty, when she first 
appeared in the volume bearing her name. — Hartford Times. 

The very spirit of youth is in these entertaining pages. — St. Paul Pioneer 
Press. 


BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

Illustrated by Ethel Pennewill Brown. i2mo. Cloth. $1.50. 

In the third and concluding volume of “ The Betty Baird Series,” Betty is shown 
happily at work in her profession, still earnest in her purpose to pay off the 
mortgage, and in the meantime to make her home a centre of useful interests. 


LITTLE, BROWN, £s? COMPANY, Publishers 

34 BEACON ST., BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 


KATHARINE RUTH ELLIS' 
WIDE AWAKE GIRLS SERIES 


THE WIDE AWAKE GIRLS 

Illustrated by Sears Gallagher. i2mo. $i .50. 

A book doubly remarkable because its excellent workmanship comes from a hand 
hitherto untried. — New York Times. 

Its excellent literary tone, simple, refined, and its frequent humor and fresh, 
strong interest commend it as a most promising first volume of “ The Wide Awake 
Girls” series. — Hartford Times. 

The quiet and cultured home life presented forms a pleasing contrast to the more 
showy and hollow life of the wealthy and wins the reader by a strong and subtle 
spell. The whole story is fresh and bracing and full of good points and informa- 
tion as well. — St. Louis Globe Democrat. 

THE WIDE AWAKE GIRLS AT WINSTED 

Illustrated by Sears Gallagher. i2mo. $1.50. 

It is another charming book, without sentimentality or gush about the four girls 
who made such a jolly quartette in the preceding story. — Philadelphia Press. 

Incidents are many, and the story is vivaciously told. The tone throughout is 
refined and the spirit stimulating. — Brooklyn Daily Times. 

Those who read the first volume of Katharine Ruth Ellis* “Wide Awake Girls” 
series last year will welcome the second volume. They will encounter again the 
same four girls of the previous book, all at Catharine’s home in Winsted, and they 
will find them just as vivacious and entertaining as ever. — Chicago Tribune. 

THE WIDE AWAKE GIRLS AT COLLEGE 

Illustrated by Sears Gallagher. i2mo. $1.50. 

The third volume in the “ Wide Awake Girls ” series finds the four friends at 
Dexter, where they live the happy, merry life of the modern college girl. Miss 
Ellis still maintains the atmosphere of quiet refinement, and has introduced an 
older element, which lends much to the interest of the book — the element of love 
and romance. The “ Wide Awakes ” are growing up and Catharine’s love story 
delights her associates. 


LITTLE, BROWN, £s? COMPANY, Publishers 

34 BEACON ST., BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 


>• 




















° $ 

V? 


* «V 


r* i- 
c - ^ » ' 


* o * 0 ’ c o 

<V ^ V * 0 , ^ 

A* .\aW>> V * 

^<P ^ 


,v* < 

<<> 

V V 


^ \v ✓> 

' " s * * , ^ 


0 N 


/ 


* 4 > 


c 0 N S/b. 


K C 


* 1 «• 'S 

V 0 > -^ 7 , ' 1 

* n # ^;, V 

<1 * k> r 


\ o< ^. 


- 

* Z 


* ' \#' s . . , %. ' * -To ’ * T- c b * * 7 ; 

‘'A' 4 ? C% - 

&C O *- jJXTT/l, r <?' ,\- * 

^7 S « T^ T^T ;^ ® ^ 

V> ^ °. VJW - A^ V ^ O 

' ,fi ‘ ^ ^\ X c #Nc * V ** ,o\* v "< 

* -r<\* <* O 0 U j. V ,YK-^ *» * 

* N J&di/.'/tz-* + 

«/» ^ V ^ 

<* o 0 *> 


-a\ ^ 

+*- v* « 

<* 


^ %<. 


C 0 . *" * * ’ o,^ 

V v s s r 


% 0 , c 


^ ' A* 

5 t \ <*V * 

^ V< V 03 


* 0 > </» 

* v T<‘ .J ■* ‘V ^ „ 

* s s % ^6^ < ■ * J 0 * K * A °<3t ‘ 

, ^ ^ . 




u \ *\ 


V v r v " 


lV 


* aT ^ - 

^ ,p> ^ 


A u 

/n r\ V >, V ' n ^ 


•J IM 


V 


% '' ' * * s " N ^ v 

°o C *1 


so 12 r ' Vj 

* y V* V ^ ^ a 

<f n , ■* A 
°" X '' 


m _ ^ <V 

>. * * n v 

\ ' O, <r, ,s .0 

A \ o N C '£•'' * * A _ \_ I 

» c V .j ry ' 



A' o ~ c , •# 


[/> ^ 

* 

o, ❖ ^ S « 0 ’ < y 

o. , 0 V V * 1 < «* 



0 * X * \\ N 


- ^ ^ 

* o N . ^ y 

°0 *».'*\\* s .*, % "o N o" £ 

///, <r> <\V * T^%h \ ’% Cy * 

V* <> 03 


,^ v **. 


<£> ^ o 

* <1/ ** ,j V^«$k\^ * <$ 9 » 

^ % a v - „ ^ ^ ^ c^ *> 

^b. '**' \o< • ' 1 ’ * %/ ° ’ ‘ V <.•"«« 'V' * * ",o^. * 1 1 




•I HrilMftrf*- 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 


0002073405 A 







